Strip The Soul
by notmanos
Summary: Post X2: While Logan is in Los Angeles, tracking down a demonic killer, he begins to remember a vital part of his forgotten past how he came to be involved with the Organization.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer: The character of Wolverine & the X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. The characters of Angel are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy. Bob and his crew are all mine. Leave them alone.  
  
N.B.: Takes place shortly after "X2", and directly after "The Hollow Men".

* * *

STRIP THE SOUL

* * *

  


  
  
1  
  


It didn't matter that it was off Sunset Boulevard, the natural home of the freaky-deaky; Rags stood out a mile away.  


  
Actually, he kind of made it worse. Maybe he was attempting to fit in wearing that white "wife beater" shirt that showed off his tattooed "sleeves" of black vines that crawled from his shoulders to the backs of his hand, going for the "cool tough guy" look. (Of course, he was assuming they were tattoos - maybe they were some odd natural "coloring" on a Persaid demon; he hadn't met enough of them to know). But there was something about Rags that seemed far too passive to project an honestly tough or menacing air. He seemed just like the perfect guy to approach when you were hopelessly lost and looking for directions.  
  
Maybe it was the yellow crystal eyes. Did no one ever notice that? Maybe people just assumed it was some kind of colored contacts. Hollywood was hardly known for its restraint or good taste. He thought he saw movement in the shadows beside him, but if something was there, it wasn't completely tangible.   
  
Logan jumped down from the roof of the tattoo parlor where he had been scanning the block, and said, "Rags, wait up!"  
  
He stopped with a slight jump, grabbing his chest like an old man having an attack of angina. "Jesus Christ," Rags snapped, scowling evilly. "D'ya 'ave to do that? Shit, you nearly gave me a 'eart attack."  
  
"Sorry." Down on the pavement, he saw what Rags' jittering, barely visible companion was Thrakkazog or however you pronounced his far too complicated name. He looked like a mostly clear pile of slime, a four foot tall heap of jiggling Jello, not the least bit humanoid or other -oid. He couldn't even see his eyes or make out something remotely like a face. He could have been a giant sized loogie coughed up by Zeus or something. How could no one find that unusual? A tattooed, yellow eyed guy and his animate mucus ball, going for a late night stroll on Sunset. That should be good for at least one lingering stare, and possibly a car accident. Or even a sitcom development deal with Fox.  
  
"If this is work or sumpfin', yer outta luck. We're celebratin'."  
  
He knew he'd regret it, but he asked anyways. "What?"  
  
"Cinco de Mayo."  
  
Logan waited a moment for the punch line, but obviously it wasn't coming. "That's in May - in fact, it means "fifth of May". This is August."  
  
Rags shrugged, pulling a battered pack of cigarettes out of the front pocket of his jeans. "I know, I'm not a goit. We're just celebratin' that it exists." As soon as he pulled out a cancer stick, he added, "You gotta find reasons sometimes."  
  
Logan looked around, just to make sure there were no cameras filming this for some kind of demon prank show. He didn't see any, but knowing demons that was no guarantee of anything. "Look, this isn't about business exactly."  
  
"Exactly? Don't like that word."  
  
Thrak made a sudden noise that sounded like water struggling to make its way down a clogged pipe, and Rags scoffed. "Now that ain't true and you know it. See if I buy you a round."  
  
He spoke … well, whatever language Thrak spoke? It didn't sound anything like a language at all; it sounded like a digestive disorder. (Did a big pile of gelatin even have vocal cords?) "I need someone who knows all the bars and clubs - demon and Human - in the Los Angeles area. Your name's on the top of that list."  
  
"Wha' makes you fink I know that kinda stuff?"  
  
Thrak gargled and choked for a bit, and Rags looked at him and scowled. "That's such bullshit."  
  
Logan wished he spoke phlegm. No, wait, he didn't. "C'mon Rags, you can't tell me you don't know L.A. How long have you lived here?"  
  
He shrugged again, the cigarette now dangling from the corner of his mouth. "Dunno. A few years, I guess."  
  
Thrak made a noise like a runny toilet. If he'd had a handle, Logan would have jiggled it. Rags gave his friend the (literal) slime ball a somewhat cross look, brow furrowing over his glass eyes. "Surely it 'asn't been that long."  
  
"There's twenty bucks in it for you if you help me."  
  
"Oh, all right," he agreed finally. "Up front?"  
  
Logan sighed and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a twenty. It was too hot to actually be wearing any kind of coat, not to mention a leather one, but he'd just arrived in the city and didn't even have a hotel room yet. Honestly, he just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. He had other plans to make.   
  
Rags took the proffered bill, and proceeded to fold it up into a square so tiny and precise that he wondered if demons could be obsessive-compulsive. "So what is it I can 'elp you wif, mate?"  
  
"I'm lookin' for a place called Arcanum. It's not in the book, it's not on-line, and the few people I've asked have looked at me funny. You know where it is?"  
  
Rags seemed to glance up at him through half masted eyelids, but since he had no irises or pupils, it was impossible to say how he managed to see any damn thing. "There's two of 'em," he said, tucking the bill in his pants pocket. "One of 'em's an occult bookstore, so that probably ain't what'cher after. The other's a real exclusive club. I mean, you gotta travel in certain social circles to even know it exists."  
  
"So where is it?"  
  
Yet another shrug, but this time he also used his hands. "I'll 'ave to ask around."  
  
Logan held his hand out. "Give me my money back."  
  
"Now, don't be like that! I know who to ask - I'll find out for ya. But why do you even wanna know? It doesn't seem like your kinda scene."  
  
"I'm not lookin' to dance. I just need to find someone."  
  
"Who? Maybe -"  
  
"I don't have a name. I just know where they're supposed to be."  
  
Thrak made another gargling, choking sound that sounded somewhat like a death rattle, and Rags snorted a laugh. "That's a bit 'arsh, inn't?"  
  
Logan scowled at the big lump of slime, figuring he'd been insulted even if he didn't know exactly how. "How fast can you get me the info?"  
  
"I dunno. I'll ask around tonight, see what I can find."  
  
"Great, thanks."  
  
"How do I get in touch with ya? At the Way Station?"  
  
"No … look, where do you live? I'll drop by tomorrow."  
  
Rags grimaced, looking like he'd just bitten into a very sour orange. "Umm, well …"  
  
Thrak gargled again, sounding like a drain pipe clogged with leaves. "It isn't that bad," Rags insisted, sounding defensive. He then turned his gaze back to Logan, and admitted, "I live above the Jocko's Taco off Mulholland. Can't really miss it."  
  
He lived above a taco stand? That really was kind of sad, but he supposed rents in L.A. were as bad as rent in New York City. Still, you'd think the beloved of the Gorgons could swing a better place to live. "Right. I'll drop by in the afternoon, okay?"  
  
He nodded. "The later the better, prob'ly. 'Ey, you wanna come pub crawlin' with us? After we hit a couple spots, we were gonna check out a new karaoke place."  
  
Logan pointed at the walking - slithering? He had no legs - Jello salad. "I thought he couldn't sing 'cause he killed people when he did."  
  
Rags made a dismissive gesture with his hand, as Thrak gargled slightly in protest. "Yeah, well, 'e didn't kill that many; that's kinda been exaggerated. Besides, this place is a demon karaoke place, so everyone oughta be fine."  
  
"Yeah, well, I got things to do, so thanks, but … maybe next time." Such as when Hell not only froze over, but opened an ice cream parlor in Cleveland. "Have fun," he added, turning away.  
  
"Always do," Rags replied, as Thrak gargled something that was probably equivalent. "And stop jumpin' off roofs, ya crazy bugger. Someone might shoot ya."  
  
Was Rags aware he really didn't care if someone shot him or not? Probably; it was just a nice thing to say. Kind of like 'Take care'.   
  
He continued down Sunset, going deeper into Hollywood, which was the opposite of glamorous. Seriously, it was a seedy pit, and he had no idea how anyone could ever think otherwise, especially in this day and age.   
  
He took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, but didn't feel much cooler. Eventually he decided to pass by all motels that rented rooms by the hour, and go for slightly more upscale fleabag hotels. He paused to buy a bubble tea - fuck, it was hot, no matter that it was almost midnight - and eventually found a relatively clean looking place with no hookers loitering in the parking lot.   
  
The Powers hadn't given him a lot to go on, but it was easy to connect the dots, and see why even Yasha might have been eager for him to take this on. It was easy enough to use the internet to corroborate all of it: people were dropping dead of what the paper had deemed "extreme, rapid dehydration" due to the new "party drug" known as "pink" or "A" - anodyne, of course. The Three Dragons were starting to distribute it in California, and once it hit here, it was inevitable that everyone else would eventually get it. Of course, along with this "rapid dehydration", the papers had to add that users said it brought an "incredible high". Why not just say, "Come on, kids, if you don't try it, you're a pussy". Maybe it was a good thing no one read papers anymore.  
  
Not everybody who took it died, but that left lots of questions. Why did some die, and like that? He didn't believe the "dehydration" story for a minute. Maybe his healing factor prevented him from falling victim to whatever lethal aspect it had, but what made the difference between normal people? Was it is something as logical as amount taken, or as arbitrary as body chemistry? There was a demon connection here, even if it wasn't clear what yet, and that had to play a part too. So basically he was playing detective with almost nothing to go on, except a familiarity - of sorts - with anodyne, and the name of a club, Arcanum, that he was basically told he had to go to. Still, finding drugs in L.A. - that was child's play.  
  
After getting a room, he crossed the street and bought a six pack of reasonably decent beer (it wasn't the best, but it would do), and only then settled in. He filled his bathroom sink with ice, to keep the beer cold, and then ordered a pizza from the company that had left an advertising flyer on his door. Only in L.A. could you get delivery pizza until one in the morning.  
  
Anodyne. Man, he couldn't help but wish he could feel that stuff again. It wasn't an "incredible high", although the pain free side effect may have qualified. No, the best thing about anodyne, as far as he could tell, was the absolute sense of peace it gave you. It wasn't like ecstasy, or what he imagined ecstasy to be; anodyne just made you feel that everything was right with the world, and with yourself. There was no doubt, no fear, no pain, no sorrow - it was the Buddhist ideal of perfect enlightenment in liquid form.  
  
That's why he wanted it so bad, and that's precisely what made it so dangerous. How could you not want that? It crossed all boundaries, appealed to everyone, whether they knew it or not. Anodyne had the potential to be more addictive than crack, and that was pure genius. He knew the demon member of the Dragons knew what they had on their hands, but did the Triad or the Yakuza? Could they appreciate the lethal gold mine-slash- powder keg they were sitting on?  
  
Probably not. It probably fed into the demon Dragons' plan to get rid of the Yakuza and Triad in one fell swoop. Get rid of all the other competition, and then get rid of their partners. Both the Yakuza and Triad were too arrogant to even consider a double cross of that magnitude … but it was inevitable, wasn't it? You'd think gangsters would know you never could trust another gangster, no matter how powerful and smart you thought you were. Logan still hadn't figured out how to turn them against one another, It didn't help that he was a highly wanted man among the Yakuza chickenshits.  
  
While waiting for the pizza guy, he sat on his rather hard motel bed and turned the t.v. on, wondering if there was anything besides infomercials, talk shows, and soft core porn on at this hour. At the beginning, the answer was no, but then on one of the obscure cable channels, he discovered the last part of Kiss Me Deadly playing. So he watched it, amused at how things had changed since the "film noir" days, but by the time the pizza guy had came and went, he discovered it was some kind of "film noir" film festival, and the next movie up was Out Of The Past. He had vague memories of having seen it before, but he was soon engrossed in it, as if it was completely new to him. Damn, what a good film; this was back when Hollywood continued to flirt with sharp, snappy dialogue. Why did they give that up? Maybe it was too hard to write all the time.  
  
He was done with the pizza and on his second to last beer as Double Indemnity rolled, and he wondered if he had ever been sadder. Sitting in a cheap motel room, eating greasy pizza and drinking sub-par beer, and watching old movies on a television bolted down to its stand so no one could steal it. He should be out stalking the clubs, trying to find the anodyne distributors …but then all he'd find would be the middlemen. He needed the head honchos, the people who really knew what was going on - and to attract their attention, he needed daylight.   
  
By the time The Maltese Falcon was under way, the sky was starting to get light at the edges, and he calculated that it was early morning in New York - very early morning. But he would bet his eye teeth that the Boy Scout was up. Something about him screamed irritating morning person.   
  
He dialed his cell phone and laid back on the hard bed, staring up at the stuccoed ceiling, and after a few rings, Scooter picked up. "Summers."  
  
"You answer the phone like a walkie talkie?"  
  
There was a long, annoyed pause. "What do you want, Logan?"  
  
"Is Xavier up?"  
  
"Not yet. Why?"  
  
"Good. I have something to talk to you about, and he can't know. Understand?"  
  
He sighed. "No. Whatever it is you want, no."  
  
"Look -"  
  
"A thousand times no."  
  
"Will you just shut up for a moment and listen to me?" He snapped.  
  
"Why? If you've already forgotten, one of your "friends" gave me an unnecessary electroshock, and almost killed Saddiq a couple weeks ago."  
  
He rolled his eyes. "It's not my fault the Org-"  
  
"You're nothing but a liability," Scott interrupted. "I don't care about the Professor's desire to let you seek redemption; just your presence endangers the children here, and your reckless nature sets a horrible precedent. Instead of seeing it for the stupidity it is, they think it's "cool", even though, if they acted similar to you, they'd be dead within five minutes. It's irresponsible for you to be here if you can't conform to a reasonable standard of behavior."  
  
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold the fucking phone, Sparky," he interjected angrily. "I ain't gonna live my life to please you, and I've never intended to be a good example for anyone."  
  
He scoffed. "Well, that's obvious."  
  
"But you can't shelter those kids forever, and having everyone act like the same neutered fucking zombie isn't good for anyone! Maybe the little kids'll buy it, but the teenagers will know you're full of shit. Do they think I'm cool? Well, whose fault is that? They only think I'm cool 'cause I act like a real fucking human being. Maybe if you tried it once in a while, they wouldn't."  
  
A long, angry pause, full of hate. "Are you done?"  
  
"Not hardly. What was that bullshit about me seeking redemption? I got nothin' to be "redeemed" for."  
  
"And the saddest thing is you probably believe that."  
  
"Shall I bring up that church in Maine you leveled? What about Changan Junction? I wonder if anyone's noticed it doesn't exist anymore."  
  
Even as he said it, Logan knew it was a low blow, and half expected Scott to hang up on him. But instead the silence, rich with resentment, stretched on for a while. He thought he heard a metal on metal sound in the background, and realized Scott had just thrown a wrench down. Was he working on cars this early in the morning? Well well, something was gnawing on Junior's short hairs - maybe the attack by Cole had made him more unsettled than he imagined.   
  
"That wasn't my fault," Scott growled. "They telepathically rewired my brain -"  
  
"Welcome to the party," Logan interrupted. "You think you got mindfucked, bub? Wanna have a look at my scrambled brains? Maybe I'll knock some out of my ear and mail it to ya. You can't have it both ways - either the Organization both raped our brains half to death, or we're both responsible. You can't say you're innocent because you're such an upstanding citizen and I'm not 'cause I'm a fucking scumbag."  
  
Another pause, but Logan thought he sensed regret as opposed to open hostility. "I really don't like the term rape."  
  
"Why not? It's applicable. At least you were only mentally violated. They cut me open, injected me with molten metal, shot me with automatic weapons, and drowned me to see what I could come back from. And because I can only have drugs for a little while, they vivisected me conscious. Do you know what that's like? To feel your own skin peeled back like an orange rind -"  
  
"Stop."  
  
"Don't you wonder why I wake up screaming?"  
  
"Okay, okay, I get it Logan." He sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, okay? But I mean what I said - you're a danger to the kids, and I don't want you here if you're not going to curb your more extreme behaviors." Logan couldn't help but notice he never said he didn't think of him as a fucking scumbag. So he must have called that right.  
  
"Whatever. Are you gonna listen to me now?"  
  
"I don't know. What do you want?"  
  
"I'm assuming you know Bob took care of Cole. Well, I got Cole's phone, his one means of contact with the Organization, and I can use it to trace them to their new base of operations. I want to assemble a strike team and hit 'em."  
  
"Because that worked so well last time?"  
  
"Last time I went in alone."  
  
"Not really. You had Jean, remember?" There was an awful lot of bitterness and innuendo packed into those few words.  
  
"I didn't expect Jean to show up. She surprised me as much as the Organization. I'm not counting on her doin' a repeat."  
  
"What about Bob? He can take them out."  
  
"The Organization is already afraid of Bob. What they need to be is afraid of us."  
  
"Us? Are you including me in this?"  
  
"Why the fuck d'ya think I called? So you could go all fishwife on me?"  
  
"What the hell does that mean, "go all fishwife"? If you were my husband, I'd kill myself."  
  
"And if you were my wife, I'd help. Look, I want you and Saddiq -"  
  
"Saddiq?! Are you fucking out of your mind?! No!"  
  
"Listen-"  
  
"No! No kids!"  
  
"I know Saddiq. As much as we don't like it, he was born and bred to think his only purpose in life was to fight, and all of his ego and self-identity is predicated on that. Until he learns to adjust, that's all he's got, and he won't forget being beaten. He will hold a grudge and it will fester; best to let him get it out now, on a deserving target. And you know damn well he can take care of himself better than most adults." He wanted to add "Better than you", but didn't.  
  
"So we'll take advantage of his warrior slave upbringing in Rajan."  
  
"I didn't say I liked it, but it would make sense, and might make him feel better. How's he been since he recovered?"  
  
There was a brief pause, and Scott pointedly didn't answer that question. That told Logan all he needed to know. "Three does not a strike team make."  
  
"I'm gonna bring in Marcus -"  
  
"Should have guessed."  
  
"- Srina, a friend of mine you don't know, Helga -"  
  
"Should have guessed that too."  
  
"- I got some friends in London looking for Spider, but we might not find him in time. And lastly, The Sisters."  
  
"What? Oh, no no no, not those psycho vampires -"  
  
"They're our aces in the hole."  
  
"They're nutjobs, sadistic nutjobs on top of that, as if being vampires wasn't bad enough on its own."  
  
And he hadn't even seen them yank someone's arms off. What would he think of them if he had? "But that's why they're so vital. The Organization still fights vamps like regular demons; they hit 'em with bullets, electricity, projectiles, gas - everything but the wood and the sunlight that would actually kill them. And vampires are immune to telepathy, so if they attempt to hit us with that, they're screwed."  
  
Scott sighed heavily. "If you have to bring a vampire into this, why not Angel? At least he seems relatively sane."  
  
"He's busy. And frankly, I'm kinda sold on the Sisters' innate viciousness."  
  
"You would be."  
  
"The Organization deserves them."  
  
He waited for Scott to attempt to refute that, but to his credit, he didn't even try. "You know this is vicious circle. We'll never scare them enough that they won't come back."  
  
"I know that. I just want to get some breathing room here, and I think you'd want the same thing, for the kids if not for you." He was not above emotional manipulation. Sometimes it was all you had.  
  
Another long pause from Scott, another put upon sigh. "I really don't know about this."  
  
Actually, the fact that he didn't use his 'A thousand times no' line on him again meant he had him. "You got a couple days to think about it. I have some business to wrap up in L.A. first."  
  
"Business?" He asked archly. "What kind of business?"  
  
"Do you really wanna know?"  
  
This pause was extremely brief. "No. Try not to kill anyone. And if you do, try and stay out of the news. Things are bad enough for mutants nowadays as it is." Scott then hung up, and Logan almost thought about calling back just to ask, "What, no goodbye kiss?" But he just dropped the receiver in its cradle, and picked up his beer can off the nightstand.  
  
All in all, that went much better than he expected. 


	2. Part 2

2

As usual, the birds woke him up. Sometimes when the winds down the mountain really kicked up, the branches of the overgrown high bush cranberry beneath his window, and the full sized jack pine by the near corner would slam against the walls of his cabin and make a noise like someone scrubbing his outer walls with stiff brushes. At first, the noise was disturbing, but now he was used to it, and almost found it comforting. That told him he had been settled in one place too damn long.

Oh shit, he already knew that. The poor people who ended up here called him "Sheriff", did they not? Too many people knew him, and depended on him. He needed to get lost again before they found out about him. So why hadn't he? What was keeping him here?

Logan sat up and moved to the end of his bed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, as he realized inertia had taken a toll on him. He stayed because he felt if he didn't look after things here, no one else would, and damn him, he felt good here. It was an isolated area, beautiful, and he liked the property he had. A whole acre of his own, incorporating a good sized pond and a small creek, all leading out towards the edge of the pine forest, the one where the logging companies had yet to set up shop. Everyone knew enough to leave him alone, unless it was an emergency or something.

And then there was Celia, but he knew he shouldn't think like that. He couldn't think about her at all, because all he could do was bring her pain - all he ever did was bring people pain. That was the whole point of isolating himself in the first place, or at least one of them. He would have liked to have said women made him weak, but it wasn't their fault - the fault was in him, and he knew it. He loathed it, and would have beaten it out of him if he could, but things could never be that easy. Little in life ever was.

He got up and started his usual morning routine, priming his wood stove and figuring if he had any clean clothes left (god, he hated laundry), but he didn't make breakfast for himself. He knew he should, but he needed to see her. It felt like his day couldn't actually start

until he saw her, until she said "Hello", and he knew he was perfectly and utterly doomed. So what was he doing about it? He was going into town to meet her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He really did sabotage himself, each and every time. At least he had no one else to blame.

The sun was bright, but the air had a chill bite to it, the hard promise of the coming fall. He'd done a winter here, and while it wasn't as bad as it could be, he wasn't sure if he wanted to repeat it. If he just had himself to look after, fine, but when he had people to worry about, he didn't like it. After all, he'd met no one quite as resilient as him.

He'd traveled this way enough that he was starting to wear a path through the thick, bristling pine copse that separated him from what passed for the town, and he saw it as the most visible sign that he had been here too damn long. A reminder that got muddy when the rains came.

He hesitated to even call it a town, as it was far too small - what was called "Frontier" was really a sprawling collection of cabins and businesses, all owing their existence to the itinerant logging and mining camps that were set up higher on the slopes and farther away, in areas far too hostile or chronically inaccessible for long term encampments. It was pretty peaceful, actually - it was when the loggers or miners came to town on breaks that things got rough. And that's how he got what was essentially a stewardship position; the loggers and the miners knew enough not to get on the wrong side of him. They counted on their being no law enforcement out here, where there were to few people to care and little direct access to the outside world, but they didn't count on him. As he had been told, he didn't "look like much", but he could kick all their asses if he absolutely had to, and they knew it. It also helped that they knew that Chief Superintendent McClendon - the closest police authority, twenty five miles away in Red River - had made it clear he was an "honorary" cop. No one knew why, although there were rumors he had been one once, before the Dominion Police and the Royal Northwest Mounted Police were reorganized into the new Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And that was close enough to the truth that Logan let it stand. McClendon knew the truth - in fact, they had very briefly worked together in B Squadron - so he was confident that he wouldn't go breaking the law or abusing his authority. That was a safe bet, as he preferred to be left alone, and everyone knew if they were peaceable and didn't bother anyone else, he would never bother them. The problem was, some of the new people from the mining and logging camps had to be taught that.

There was a reason this place was called Frontier - it was the last bastion of "civilization" before the higher elevations, where few dared to tread, beyond those working for the various business concerns, looking for new material to exploit. Hell, the last paved road was down in White River; no one had felt the need to extend the roads up here, even though he knew that was a matter of time. A time rapidly coming on - there were too many logging companies and mining companies using the area to keep it isolated for long.

A shame, but isolation had its own problems. Certain types of people sought out isolation; people on the run from various things, people who wanted absolute privacy to hide themselves or any "peculiarities" in their way of life. (Why else was he up here?) Neither the logging or mining companies were very picky about the people they hired for this grinding, lonely work, hence his unofficial status as protector of Frontier. McClendon didn't know everything about him - no one did - but he must have known enough to understand he was fighting fire with fire.

The copse gave way to a clearing, where bees buzzed around the wild raspberry bushes in such great numbers it sounded like a mechanical hum, and then he saw the wide gravel road of what they jokingly called "Main Street". In actuality, it was the only street, with sturdy wooden buildings on one side only, with clapboard roofs that appeared almost Alpine in construction. For good reason - the snow couldn't build up too badly on roofs like that, nor could the rain if the gutters clogged. (Of course, mostly around here there were no gutters.) The largest of the roughly A framed buildings belonged to the general store and the tavern/diner run by Gus Bishop, a grizzled old guy who claimed he used to be a trapper, which is how he lost most of the fingers on his left hand (the story there was either a malfunctioning beaver trap or an enraged cougar, depending on who he told it to). Of course, Logan had seen black speckles near the rough seam of skin where his index finger used to be, speckles that looked like gunpowder and led him to believe he actually lost them in an alternate way, but he never called Gus on it - everybody needed their delusions.

He walked in the front door, and was greeted by the scent of fresh coffee and frying bacon. There were a couple of people at the small, rough hewn tables scattered around the main room, the regulars who came here for a decent breakfast and a pretty face, and Celia had pasted on her professional smile until she saw it was him, and then it became a genuine one that reached her beautiful brown eyes, which were kind of a warm mahogany. "Sheriff, good morning."

"Good morning to you too, Celia. And you know it's always Logan to you." He smiled at her as he took a seat at what was a bar during later hours; now, it was just a counter with last night's beer stains on it.

Celia seemed far too young and pretty to be in a place like this, but her reasons for wanting to isolate herself were quite obvious. It was in the shape of her sloe-eyes, the slightly darker undertone of her skin, her sleek black hair - she was, as they liked to say, "half-caste", Eskimo on her mother's side, white on her father's, and that didn't set well with either group. To make matters worse, she had a little boy, Matthew, seven years old. She said she was a widow, that her husband died while working for the railroad, but there were rumors that she had never really been married - the inference being no white man would ever marry a half-caste - and that her boy was a bastard. He didn't know, and he honestly didn't care. Celia was chilly to most, but once you got to know her and she let her defenses down, she was sweet and truly kind. He didn't even like kids that much - they made him deeply nervous; he never knew what to do or say around them - but he liked Matt. He was one of the few kids around here - Frontier was not a very "kid friendly" place - and he seemed to be as brave and tough as his mother.

She wiped down the counter near him, looking down in an attempt to hide what looked like a blush. "So what'll it be this morning, Sher - Logan?"

"Surprise me." It hardly even classified as flirting, unless you knew Celia. Celia was chilly to all men, which made him suspect she'd been hurt pretty badly in the past. It also made him wonder about the pale scar on the side of her face, starting from the zygomatic bone on the left side of her jaw, and disappearing beneath her hairline. She usually covered it with her hair and never spoke of it, so he never asked, and he didn't stare. But he did wonder who would ever hurt her ... and if they were still around ... and if she would give him a name.

She glanced at him, a small smile curving the corner of her mouth. "That can be a dangerous request,"

"I trust you."

That made her stop and look up, genuinely surprised. Why? Was she planning a violent coup to overthrow him as town thug? After a moment, she said, "Okay," and quickly disappeared into the back. What the hell had that been about?

He didn't have much time to think about it. The door burst open and Matt came in, running and breathless. He was already showing signs that he would be a tall boy when he grew up, and although his hair was black, his complexion was paler than his mother's; he could easily pass for "fully" white, and probably would, as soon as he learned how prejudiced people could be. "Sh-sh-" he began, sounding a bit like a car that couldn't start.

"Hey," he said, getting up and going over to him. He crouched down in front of him, so he could be roughly at eye level with him. "Calm down. Take a deep breath." He waited until the boy obeyed, sucking in a couple hard breaths, before Logan asked, "Okay. What's happened?"

He was still trying to catch his breath, but he was able to talk a bit more clearer now. His cheeks burned red with the effort. "I was - I know you told me not to go there by myself, but -"

"Did you go near the logging camps?" He had told Matt not to, simply because he didn't know what some of them might do to a kid, and because those yahoos were about as safety conscious as your average drunk with a death wish and access to large tools.

Matt looked down in shame, but nodded hastily. "Yeah, but ... I stayed away, y'know, just kept to the woods, an' ... well, the guy, he was just -"

"What guy?"

He shrugged, shook his head. "I dunno, just a guy - I saw him just lying there ..."

"Lying there? Where?"

"Near those weird huts the loggers sometimes use?" He must have meant the portable equipment sheds, where they protected some of their tools from inclement weather. "I thought maybe he was sleeping, but -"

"Are you hurt?"

Matt stared at him like he had just said something idiotic. "No. The guy was face down in a mud puddle, which seemed like a weird place to sleep, but then I saw the puddle ... it was kinda red. And it was real quiet at the camp, ya know, not even the birds were around, and it smelled funny ... I think somethin' really bad has happened there. I got scared and came back ..."

Oh shit. Did one of those fucks make some bathtub (well, badly cobbled together still) gin, and go on a drunken rampage? He'd heard of it happening in British Columbia ... or maybe it was the Yukon. No matter, he knew some of these guys were wanted and deadly, and not always the most sane people in the world. "You did the right thing, coming back," he assured Matt, as Cal, one of Heller's sons and one of his reserve "deputies" (if he needed a couple guys to help him enforce some basic rules) came over. From the worried look on his lean face, he'd heard what Matt had said. Logan stood so he could look Cal in the eye. "Take care of Matt here, and if Mac comes by, tell him what he said, and tell him to radio Red River; McClendon needs to know right away."

"Whoa, wait a minute. Don't you want to -"

"I'm just going to check it out, see what's gone on, see if there are any ... witnesses." No point in saying "survivors" in front of the boy. "I'll be fine. And tell Celia to keep breakfast warm for me, huh?"

He headed back out the door, as Cal shouted after him, "Do you even know where it is?"

"I'll find it," he said, as the door swung shut.

He headed off into the dense forest bordering the edge of town, up into the green hell of lodgepole pines and tangling underbrush, and as soon as he was sure he couldn't be seen by anyone from town, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and scented the air.

It was all greenery, all the odors of flora mixed together into a smell that was partially enticing, and partially nauseating. Folded in was the scents of all the fauna of the area, including the birds and the insects, and even the body odor of the Humans had passed by here ...

...there. A sliver of a metallic scent, meaty and sour; blood. Not animal, Human; faint, but coming in from the northeast. That would probably be the encampment nicknamed "Camp Baker". He opened his eyes and started through the forest, quickly but quietly. It was possible that the assailant was still at Camp Baker, and Matt's hasty retreat attracted his attention. He didn't want to lose an opportunity, no matter how slim, of getting the drop on him first.

But the closer he got, the more he slowed down. The scent of blood became thick and cloying, and became joined with another smell, the "funny smell" Matt had surely reported. It was a smell he knew pretty well: decaying flesh, internal gas spilling from cuts in the intestines, shit, piss, fear. Something awful had happened at Camp Baker, and before he could even spot a single building through the trees, he knew there was nothing living there. Maybe some insects, maggots already burrowing into flesh, but even the bigger predators hadn't arrived yet. This must have happened a few hours ago, tops.

He stepped through the trees and into the clearing where Camp Baker had set up, and his boots squished noisily, making him stop. No, he hadn't stepped on something - the ground was so soaked through with blood, it was a mud pit.

This wasn't a drunken rampage, but a full on massacre.

* * *

When Logan woke up and found himself staring up at a stuccoed ceiling, his disorientation was complete and total.

It took him several minutes to remember when - and when - the hell he was, and his head kind of hurt for a minute. Then he remembered that his "payment" for doing all this, from the Powers, was memories. Is that why his head hurt?

The pain faded, and he sat up, trying to process everything he had recalled. That must have been Alberta, but where, and when? He'd never heard of a place called Frontier, but then again, it wasn't a proper town - just a collection of buildings calling itself a town. But no paved road? The RCMP a new thing?

It didn't get that name until after World War One, right? So maybe early 1900's. Shit. He was not that old! Couldn't be. Could he?

Damn it. But at least he wasn't no fucking Mountie. Still - B Squadron? Did he even want to know what that was?

He rubbed his eyes, which felt like sandpaper, and went to clean up, and hopefully wake up. In spite of the small room air conditioner making a noise like a damaged 747, it was still unbearably stuffy, the sunlight bleeding through the blinds intolerably bright. He just knew it was going to be a blast furnace out there today. He was leaving the coat behind.

In fact, when he got dressed, he decided jeans and a tank top were enough, along with his boots and sunglasses. He really wasn't made for the Los Angeles climate, which seemed reinforced when he attempted to go outside, and the hot, dense air almost pushed him back in. If it wasn't bad enough that it was about a hundred and one degrees out, it smelled like exhaust and all the industrial effluvia that gave L.A. its smog. He found himself missing the reek of blood. Almost.

As he scowled beneath the harsh sun and started walking down the baking sidewalks, he wondered why the Powers were sending him that memory. Was it significant somehow? Maybe he was responsible for what happened to those itinerant loggers; maybe he pulped them like wood. Maybe they were trying to tell him he had always been violent, that his life was mired in blood, and that maybe Scooter had a point, as vague as it was. Maybe there were a ton of things he needed to atone for.

Or maybe not. Maybe they were trying to tell him something else. He didn't have enough of the plot yet to know.

He came to a small New Age-y looking gift shop called Mandrake's, just one of similar small shops on the border of West Hollywood, attempting shabby and offbeat chic and only succeeding in one instance, and only then completely by accident. He walked in the glass door, setting off the gentle tinkling of brass chimes, and was assaulted by the scent of too many herbs and too many essences of flowers. He started sneezing and didn't stop until the proprietor came out. "And how may I help you today, kind sir? A tissue perhaps?"

He glanced up at the man, who actually looked disturbingly androgynous, with a round face and soft features, hair - if it existed - hidden within the folds of bright blue cloth - it was half turban, and half do rag. "You Argenis?" He asked, sniffing.

The would be Argenis folded together his long, bejeweled fingers on top of the glass topped counter. "Indeedy do. What can I assist you with?"

"I need some transportation, a motorcycle if you can swing it, and I may need a place for dead drops." He wiped his nose on his wrist, and hoped he adapted soon. Who knew attar of marigold could give him sinus pain?

Argenis blinked his large, oddly colorless eyes. "I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I sell potions and -"

"I'm a friend of Angel's."

It made him pause, but he still seemed unimpressed. "Angel fell into some misfortune, it seems. So any leverage that had -"

"I'm Bob's avatar, and the vamps around here know me as the Decapitator." He held up his right hand and popped his claws. "Shall we discuss leverage, or just arm wrestle?"

That did it. Argenis had jumped back half a foot when his claws emerged, and his eyes were so large they looked they were about to fall out of their sockets and roll under the counter. As soon as Logan retracted his claws again, a hand fluttered to Argenis's oddly concave chest, and he remembered to breathe. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place, Human? Jesus, you didn't have to scare the kredlop out of me."

Argenis was a demon black market "fixer"; whatever you needed he could get, usually at light speeds, as long as you weren't too picky about how legit it was. Angel apparently leaned on him for information and weapons from time to time - Angel, to his credit, scared much of the demon underground - so he was hoping throwing his name around would get cooperation. Obviously news of Angel's disappearance had finally made it through the underground, so there was no point throwing his name around anymore. But at least Bob's name was still good for something. Or maybe it was the claws; it was amazing the doors his claws could open.

Argenis pulled out a PDA from the folds of the sapphire satin robe he was wearing, and he started tapping on it with a stylus. "You are Human, aren't you?"

"Yeah. What kinda crack is that?"

"It wasn't a crack, friend. It's just that Humans are hardly strong enough to be avatars, and those knives of your are hardly standard issue."

"I'm not a standard issue Human."

"So I've gathered." He slipped on a headset receiver for a cell phone, and after a minute, he said, "Jefah, I need a motorcycle. Delivered ..?" Argenis pointed down at the counter, and Logan nodded. "Here. Immediately." He tapped the side of his headset, and asked him, "Dead drop - do you mean a place for anonymous mail deliveries, or other?"

"Other. Specifically, a place where something ugly won't get noticed, and where there won't be many innocent bystanders around."

"The first is easy - it's L.A., honey; ugly things are ignored out of habit - but the no collaterals ... I assume you mean to put those knives to use, Miss Thang."

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms over his chest. Miss Thang? No, he didn't want to know. "It ain't me I'm worried about. It's the guys who'll be shootin' at me." That made Argenis raise an eyebrow right back at him. "And the closer to Chinatown, the better."

"Living out a hard boiled movie fantasy, huh? Odd, I'd have pegged you more as the Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen type." Before he could insult him anew, Argenis tapped his headset, and said, "Jef, is that place on Crestmore still around? No, not that one ... yes, that's the one. Yes I'm serious. I don't think the shape it's in matters that much." His colorless eyes flicked to him, and Logan shook his head. "No, it doesn't in the slightest." Argenis just listened and nodded for a full half minute, then said, "Set it up. I need it as of ten minutes ago. Ciao baby, all my love to Greg." He then tapped the headset again and slid it off, somehow not messing up his new fangled turban. "Right. I think you'll be good to go as soon as Meggie turns up with the bike."

"Just like that?"

He scoffed. "Well, yes. What did you expect? I'm the best." He paused, canting his head to the side as he scrutinized him. "What I don't understand is why you didn't just have Bob handle this, if he is indeed connected to you."

"'Cause he might stop me if he knows what I'm gonna do."

"I don't want any trouble with him. In my experience, you don't fuck with arms dealers unless you honestly enjoy playing pick up sticks with your own ribs."

He'd almost forgotten Bob had an L.A. reputation as a demons arms merchant. The Way Station was supposedly a front for that. "Don't worry, he won't blame you. Your ass is covered."

"Damn well better be. So, uh ... is that Doctor Kriedler's work?"

"Huh?"

He nodded at him, but the gesture was too vague for him to know what it meant. "The knives! That was a custom job, right?"

Logan scowled, and hid his hands beneath his arms. This was not something he wanted to discuss. "S'pose so."

"Kriedler?"

"I don't even know who the fuck Kriedler is."

"Really? Well, maybe that's too streamlined for his work. He's a plastic surgeon in the Valley who does some very custom body modification for the right price."

That sounded really disgusting. But he wondered if that was a clue, or a veiled warning. "What kind of modifications?"

He shrugged, and it seemed like a fluid rolling, as if his shoulders were honestly rounded, perhaps domed shaped, under his loose, concealing clothing. "Anything you can afford, and within general humanoid bounds, he can do. He's a genius. But, also, mobbed up to the gills - so to speak - so you have to be real careful in your dealings with him. If you know what I mean, and I think you do."

"Mobbed up? To which one?"

"To the only one that matters, honey. Demon."

If he was connected to the demon mob, then he was, by extension, a member of the Three Dragons, whether he realized it or not. And if he was Human - the name sounded Human - it might be just the access he was looking for. Maybe the Powers That Be acted in mysterious ways. "Got an address for me?"

That made Argenis arch a painted eyebrow, but he did tell him what he wanted to know. He didn't ask if Kriedler saw patients without an appointment, because it really didn't matter.

Today he was going to, whether he liked it or not.


	3. Part 3

3  
  
Jocko's Taco looked like it used to house a more mundane, sedate building, maybe a Hallmark or a small clothing boutique or something. In a concrete block style building that looked pretty damn depressing. The lower level was all Jocko's, which seemed to have at its advertising mascot a chihuahua in a serape and a sombrero. Were they saying that was in the tacos? Kinda smelled like it.  
  
The second story of the building, though, had heavy blinds covering its windows, and not a single picture of a chihuahua. When the wind shifted and blew the grease smell away from him, he thought he caught the scent of celery. Poor Rags - you think he could afford something a little better. It was probably a minor miracle that he didn't reek of grease and jalapenos most of the time.  
  
Even before he rounded the corner, the smell of the dumpster and the grease trap hit him like a fist, and he had to take a moment to adjust. Damn - meat products and heat waves didn't mix, not at all. Once he was roughly certain his nose had adjusted, he went completely around the back and found the rear stairs leading up to the second level. The stairs shook as he went up them, and he suddenly wondered if they could hold his weight. Oh well - that's what his claws were for; if he fell, he'd just screw up their façade. No big deal.  
  
He made it to the door and knocked, hoping the flimsy thing wouldn't fly apart beneath his fist. "Rags, it's me," he shouted, hoping he wouldn't think he was under siege and call the wrath of the Gorgons down on whoever was outside.  
  
He listened closely, and thought he heard a groan far beyond the door. "Come in then - and tone it the bloody fuck down, would you?"  
  
He tried the door, and yeah, it was unlocked. But the smell of the dumpsters probably deterred any criminal who thought this was an easy mark.  
  
He shoved it open and stepped inside the dark, slightly stuffy space that was Rags' "loft" apartment (and clearly used to be an office space). An air conditioner rattled in the side window like it was about to shake itself apart, but still didn't cut the heat that much, and did nothing to disperse the smell, which was a rather odious combination of vomit, stale beer, and various bodily emissions he really didn't want to think about.  
  
There wasn't much in the way of furniture. A bed and box spring on the floor, across from a television on a stand, a dresser and some random nightstands, a cupboard and some small appliances on the far side of the room. The t.v. was on, showing what looked like Farscape repeats, but the volume was off, and there was a clump of blankets and sheets on the unmade bed.  
  
No, wait, it wasn't just blankets - it was Rags laying in a sprawled heap, tangled in his own bedding. "Wha' d'ya want?" He groaned into the mattress, not bothering to look at him or move in any way at all.  
  
Logan looked down at him, crossing his arms over his chest but not wasting the energy it took to scowl. "Really tied one on last night, huh?"  
  
He made a noise that could have been a yes or a no, or in fact an insult; it was just a random collection of muffled syllables.  
  
"Should I call 911 for you or something?"  
  
He let out a negative sounding groan, and snaked his arm out of the sheets, waving it in a manner that was probably dismissive. (Or indicated he was drowning.) He turned over on his side, so at least he wasn't speaking into the mattress. "'m okay, jus' tired. Got in late."  
  
"Uh huh." Rags' skin had a decidedly disturbing yellow tone to it, like maybe his liver had decided to shut down, but he was a demon, and his eyes were yellow. Wasn't his blood yellow too? It was probably just Rags being flushed.  
  
"Wha' d'ya want?" Rags asked again, sounding more annoyed this time.  
  
He scoffed, shaking his head in disgust. "You were gonna find out where Arcanum was for me, remember?"  
  
"Oh, yeah." He opened his eyes a little, and glanced up at him, squinting like he was the sun. "I couldn't."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I tried, right? But I was told I 'ave to know people - the right people - to even know where it is. An' apparently I don't. But Thrak said 'e'd try."  
  
"Thrak?"  
  
"'e may know some of th' right people."  
  
"How?"  
  
"'e's connected."  
  
Logan threw his hands up in the air, giving up. "I'd ask for my money back, but I'm sure you've drank it."  
  
"'ey! I said I'd try! I never guaranteed results."  
  
"Thanks a lot," he sighed, glad that he had a back up lead at least. He turned to leave, and Rags added, "If ya need 'elp wif anythin', y'know, you can always call me."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind," he replied, keeping his back to him so Rags didn't see him roll his eyes.  
  
He was half way out the door when Rags added, "Somebody's lookin' fer ya."  
  
He froze, replaying his slurred word in his head, just to make sure he heard him right. "What?"  
  
"Buncha ugly ass Ressiks were askin' about a 'uman wif metal claws, the "Decapitator". Seems somebody's put a major price on yer 'ead."  
  
He wished he was surprised, but he wasn't. So he didn't need to make a big scene to get the notice of the Three Dragons, did he? Great. "Did you say anything?"  
  
It was Rags's turn to scoff, but the effort made him cough, and Logan thought he might puke. Somehow, he didn't. "Fuck no. I 'ate bloody Ressicks anyways, but there's no way in 'ell I wanna piece-a you."  
  
Well, at least part of his brain was functioning, in spite of the alcohol poisoning. "Where was this?"  
  
Rags made a noise somewhere between clearing his nose and a goose honk. "Fuck me if I know. Coupla bars … can't really remember."  
  
Geeze, he wondered why. "Doesn't matter. I'll find 'em, or they'll find me. It'll prob'ly end up the same either way."  
  
"Be careful. It's no fun t' 'ave the demon underground gunnin' fer ya."  
  
He shrugged. "It ain't the first time."  
  
"Yeah, but this time they know what they're dealin' wif, right? They know you. Expect 'em to be ready for ya this time."  
  
"I always am." But that was sort of a lie, wasn't it? He liked to think he was, but he had to admit to himself that sometimes they caught him short. Still, he was ready. The Yakuza, Triad, and Demons had had time to compare notes, and must have figured out by now that the first two had nothing that could actually kill him, and yet the third group had probably not revealed their true nature to their brand new pals. They were the ones he had to worry about - as did the Yakuza and Triad, but they didn't know it. And Logan honestly wasn't inclined to tell them.  
  
If they had all gotten together to compare notes, they had to know more about him than he was comfortable with. If they knew about his Yashida past, and the helicopter in Hong Kong, they must have known he had claws, they must have known he could heal from however many bullets they could pump into him. So they'd have to come up with an alternate strategy, something big, something custom made nasty just for him.  
  
Fine - let them come; let them throw everything they had or could scrounge up at him. The best they could do is slow him down.

* * *

4  
  
Mesa Rojas, Mexico

* * *

He hated being so low on the totem pole that they sent him out on missions like this.  
  
At first, the free trip to Mexico sounded great, but then he learned what his mission would be. What, no one needed whores or drugs from Tijuana? Oh, how he longed for the simple, good old days.  
  
This city was abandoned, although that was a recent development. It was blamed on a chemical spill, or fighting bleeding over from the troubled Chiapas region, but one look at the corpse propped up on the road sign - with its body skewered on the post and its head, eyeless and baked by the relentless sun, nailed on top of the blood speckled placard indicating the road was out - and he knew, as that movie put it so succinctly, this was no fucking boating accident. This entire tiny village, this damned, sun-baked shit pile, had been killed by vampires.  
  
No, not vampires - vampire. One. The one he was supposed to somehow convince to come back to Los Angeles with him.  
  
Why the upper echelon was spending so much time on this hunt was beyond him. They were bringing in headhunters in a hurry, heavy hitters, the cream of the crop of demon killers who were simply too good - and too gleeful - at their job to be called simply hit men. (If they were in fact men.) Why the Three Dragons, the most vicious criminal organization currently in existence, needed even more killers was totally beyond him. Yeorg had said some rival group - he never said which one - had hired a hit man of their own, some kind of legendary assassin with a personal grudge against most if not all of the Dragons themselves. They wanted him not simply killed, but obliterated; nothing short of vaporized would do. The kicker was he wasn't demon, like you would think, but mutant, and the Human quadrant of the Dragons were absolutely shitting their pants over it. He took out some people in Hong Kong, apparently - rumor had it a helicopter gunship even. The Demon part was unhappy with the idea of him because he had some connection to demons, but it wasn't clear what exactly … or at least, no one was talking. But Yeorg told him that the guy had killed lots of demons too, and not just your typical undead or squishy slime demons either; he had friends in powerful places, and it showed.  
  
It was a fallacy to think that one person - or even a group of unarmed people, of any size - could bring down something like the Dragons. Maybe in a stupid action film, or a movie of the week, but in real life it didn't happen. And, to be completely honest, the Demons would have been happy to have this guy - what was his name? Yashida; something Yashida, so, obviously Japanese (and a relative of that Yakuza guy Yashida? No wonder he had a grudge…) - kill as many Triad and Yakuza as he could hit. The problem, as always, was structural.  
  
Take out a thousand flunkies, a million lower level players, barely made men, and no one would notice or care. The one great thing about cities was they pumped out cannon fodder by the truckload. The problem was this guy had a history of going after the top figures; he took the cliché "kill the head and the body will die" quite literally. He would cut through a thousand flunkies if he had to, but he would target the big bosses like a heat seeking missile. He didn't want the secretary - he wanted the CEO and the CFO. And right now, the alliance was still new, and in spite of heavy crackdowns and suppression, there was rumbling in the ranks of the Triad and Yakuza. They didn't much care working with one another, or with a third party that they were so dependant on for product. If this rogue Yashida guy killed the right upper echelon person, he would create a very brief power vacuum in that leg of the Dragon - but nature abhorred a vacuum, did it not? It would be filled, but in time? Before word got out, and the ones just below him in the chain of command started fighting among themselves to ascend to the top spot? If this "ronin" was smart, if he played his cards right, he could destabilize one leg with the right kill, and the destabilization could spread to the other Human leg. The Triad and Yakuza were already making secret contingency plans, ways to screw each other over on the assumption the other would betray them, which was all part of the master plan - the Yakuza and Triad were supposed to kill each other off, and the Demons would pick their corpses clean. It was all planned.  
  
Just not yet. It was too soon, and Anodyne was only just introduced to the market. Not enough people had been infected, it hadn't become firmly entrenched yet. No matter what he did, the Demons were fine - he couldn't destabilize them. but the Humans - as usual - were the weak links in the chain. They could easily be infiltrated and taken over, so none of the Humans beneath them in the Triad and Yakuza would realize they weren't Human anymore, and then the Three Dragons could solidify their power base. No one would even be able to conceive of opposing them, and certainly Ronin Yashida couldn't kill them. But it all dropped to that niggling little fact "when things were ready" - they weren't ready yet, and no mere Human could be allowed to fuck it up.  
  
Of course, Arbogast didn't understand how a Human could fuck it up in the first place. This wasn't "Kill Bill" or some such bullshit like that, and no Human - no matter their mutant ability or connections - should be even considered a reasonable threat for the most minor of lackey. In fact, they were just damn fun to kill, mainly because most operated under the delusion that they were at the top of the food chain. They were not a challenge, not even the demon hunters, although they could be tricky. So why was this guy causing a group case of the wibbles? So he was some kind of assassin who had carved a bloody chunk out of the Japanese underworld - so fucking what? They were Human, and you could kill 'em by sneezing on them. Nothing special there. And he should have been no problem for the lamest Brachen demon, even if his "mutant power" was boiling people's brains inside their skulls from fifty feet out, and his "connections" were with Osiris himself. So why all this trouble for a fleshie dickhead? It seemed like overkill on several levels.  
  
Especially considering the group that had already assembled in Los Angeles. Did they really need a blood-sucker? Vampires could kill - he couldn't deny them that, even though they were generally half-breeds for whom betrayal was as natural as breathing for living people - but they had an obvious built in weakness with that whole "killed by sunlight" thing. Still, as he walked through the ragged shanty town that was the remains of Mesa Rojas, overwhelmed by the stench of baked, decomposed flesh and the incessant buzz of feasting insects, he supposed that they had a good reason for sending him here.  
  
They said she was "special", different from your average vampire, and he supposed she was. But did they mean the "short bus" kind of special? At first he thought the bones were randomly scattered, picked clean by insects and animals where they had fallen, but as he wandered the dusty, broken streets, he started to see a pattern. The skulls were put on high places - mailboxes, porches, roofs, window ledges - and facing outward, as if keeping an (non-existent) eye on things. Or keeping watch? Hands and arm bones were not actually scattered on the street, but arranged in some kind of abstract patterns, skeletal fingers pointing at one another in silent accusation, fine bones steepling and entwining as if the bodies were waiting for someone to come along and pick them up. He found rib cages stacked like some kind of odd architectural brick, a partially constructed bridge to nowhere. Vampires could be pretty twisted, but this seemed uniquely creative and grotesque. He watched snakes slither through the ribs as scorpions skittered into the shadows of the sternum, and he almost shuddered - maybe that's what it was for: some kind of scavenger terrarium.  
  
The centerpiece of the town was a huge, old fashioned church, with a tarnished bell at the top of the steeple, and a stone well in the center of its courtyard. The well's wooden bucket had a head in it, still in possession of most of its flesh, but the eyes were gone, and maggots, plump and pink, squirmed in the empty sockets. He'd been warned she had a "taste" for eyeballs.  
  
From what he could see, the windows of the church were blocked with something black, and the broken glass of what must have once been a stained glass window lay in fragments near the wooden doors like the shattered remnants of a rainbow. Would a vampire set up its home in a church? Yeah, why the hell not? They could be perverse half breeds, and this one seemed to be particularly twisted.  
  
He paused to spit out the grit and molecules of decomposed flesh in his mouth, gathered his courage, and went forward.  
  
He was Belial, so he had no fear from vampires; his blood was too bitter for their taste, as they often informed him with great disgust. But in spite of the fact that he was sweat like a fucking pig and feeling like he was being slowly roasted like a potato in an oven, he shivered as he shoved open the door and stepped inside the darkened church.  
  
Candles burned on the altar, giving a paltry illumination as he opened the door and let in the tainted air from outside. It was stuffy here, but not as bad as out there. As soon as his eyes adjusted, he noticed a couple of startling things. The statue of some saint or another - or perhaps it was even Jesus; he could never keep who Humans were worshipping this century straight - had been given a Human scalp with fine, long black hair (the blood dried to a brown crust on his face, making it look as if he had rusted), and a "stole" of one very long intestine, looped around the neck like a strand of pearls. Piled at the statue's feet were some of the eyeballs of the townspeople, but no more than maybe eight of them. And in the pews were dolls - dolls of all type, from porcelain to rustic ones made of stuffed straw, plastic Barbies in various states of dress and slumping rag dolls. Stuffed animals also filled some of the seats, mostly varieties of bears and rabbits, with the bears seeming particularly odd this far into Mexico. The head of the priest glared at him from the top of a candelabra, and while his eyes were - of course - gone, he still wore his collar, and a small candle burned on his bare scalp, like he was a pumpkin and this was Halloween.  
  
"Oh goody," a strangely light, childlike female voice said somewhere ahead of him. "I'm getting tired of these toys. They're disobedient, and they call me naughty names." A plastic doll went flying past him and crashed into the aisle behind him, squeaking a raspy, mechanical "Mama" as it hit the ground.  
  
"Okay," he muttered under his breath, wondering if this was some kind of joke they were playing on him. He cleared his throat, and began to say, "Are you-"  
  
But she didn't let him finish. "Liar liar, pants on fire," she chanted in a sing song voice, not so much emerging from behind the pulpit as spinning out from behind it, dancing to her own song. She wore a long dress of dark blue silk edged with black lace - was it really a nightgown? - and it seemed to bell out just as much as her long black hair as she spun around. But she was even more pale than your average vampire; she was so white she seemed almost translucent, her flesh as lambent as the surface of the moon. "You're a liar demon. You taste like nettles."  
  
"Do I?" He replied, not sure what to do now. She gave him a coquettish smile with her blood engorged lips, but he found himself instinctively repelled. Was she attractive? Of course she was, beautiful in an old-fashioned sort of way. But her pale blue eyes were as flat and shiny as new pennies, and he knew she was the living embodiment of the phrase "The lights are on, but nobody's home". She was "special", all right; she was the star of the "Spot the Looney" competition.  
  
She giggled, looking at him like he was a chunk of raw, bloody meat, and she was a starving tiger. "Are you scared, love? There's no need to be scared of little old me. I prefer green eyes." She jumped down, into the aisle, and even though he knew vamps didn't like Belial blood, he didn't feel that comforted. This bitch was fucking nuts. Was that why they wanted her?  
  
He swallowed hard, and tried to fall back on his prepared script. "Are you Drusilla?"  
  
She held her own hands over her eyes, like a child playing hide and seek. He thought her long fingernails were painted red, and they were, but painted red with blood slowly turning brown. "Do you think I am?"  
  
"Heh. Umm, y'know, I kinda had to walk in a long way on foot, as the road really is out along -"  
  
She gasped as if he'd said something shocking, and lifted her hands away. They didn't so much drop to her side as flutter. "You are a mouthpiece; you speak for the big bad men."  
  
He'd started to back away as she seemed to glide towards him, as if the ground was ice, but this made him pause. " What?"  
  
She gave him a smile that was at once vacant and predatory, her eyes sparkling with gleeful malice. "They think I'm a scullery maid? That I will clean up for them if they give me all the eyeballs and pretty dollies that I want?"  
  
He was almost shitting himself now. He'd never been so fucking scared of a vampire in his life. And why? She was a very slender thing; he could easily break her in half over his knee … or at least he thought he could. Perhaps that was a blind, a deceptive covering like camouflage; you thought she was weak, so you attacked - and she ripped your fucking throat out before you were even aware she had moved. "H-how did you-"  
  
"Oh no, you want the spiky one," she said, laughing. It seemed both triumphant and mocking. "He's like us, but he's not like us. The moth who dreams he's a butterfly. His blood sings and rages. Have you heard it?"  
  
"What the fuck are you talking about?" He blurted, wondering if this was all a practical joke set up by Yeorg.  
  
"He has a nasty scratch, grrr," she said, making a scratching motion in the air, her hand formed like a claw. "Fingers like thorns. He would be handsome if he didn't have so many edges."  
  
"Lady, look - do you know the Dragons want to hire you or not?" He was two seconds away from bolting out the door. At least it was day time - as long as he could make it to the door, he would be okay.  
  
She cocked her head to the side like a bird, and started swaying to music only she could hear. "You want his soul, but I want his blood. You think it will be easy to take. You don't know him …"  
  
"Yes or no?"  
  
She looked at him from beneath her dark brows, that wicked smile growing across her pale face like a bloodstain. It was easy to imagine her biting the heads off smell children, chewing on doves like finger foods. He had thought she must have taken a day or two to rip through this town, but now that he'd met her, he figured it might have taken two hours, tops. She must have run through these people like a chainsaw - they probably never knew what hit them. "They don't know the battle has been joined, do they?"  
  
"What? They? Who's "they"?"  
  
But she didn't elaborate. He wasn't even completely sure she'd heard him. She was swaying a little more now, like that beat had speeded up, and he got the chilling feeling she was staring right through him like a ghost. "Oh, the pretty blood … it runs like a river…"  
  
He looked behind him, almost expecting to see a pool of blood, but oddly enough, the aisle was pretty clean. "What are you talking about?"  
  
She seemed to see him so suddenly he almost jumped. What the hell was that, a fugue state? "It looks like my birthday party. Can I have his blood?" She bit her thumb like a nervous little girl, only she actually drew blood; he saw a thin rill of crimson lugubriously oozing its way down her palm.  
  
He felt slightly nauseous. "You can have all the blood you want."  
  
Her smile became sly, wicked, almost wry. "That's what you think. Wait 'til you see what happens."  
  
"Meaning what? What's going to happen?"  
  
She wagged a single finger at him, turning away towards the altar. "Naughty naughty. Good boys don't peek."  
  
Jesus fucking Christ - why did the Dragons want this loony toon?  
  
Sometimes, he really regretted not becoming an insurance salesman. 


	4. Part 4

5  
  
Doctor Kriedler had his own building out in the Valley, a sterile but modern office building with the faux orange adobe that made so many Southern California buildings look so fucking tacky. It was set in the center of a well manicured landscape so artificially green he felt like he was on a golf course.Walking inside, he was hit with a solid wave of cold, as the air conditioner was working overtime against the outside heat. The sweat on his skin cooled instantly, and he couldn't help but shiver - it was like being thrown into an ice cold bath. It should have been soothing, but it was mostly annoying.  
  
"Welcome. Are you Ms -" the perky voiced receptionist began. But she stopped dead and stared at him in wide eyed horror, as he stared right back at her. She was just one blonde among a half million SoCal blondes … but wasn't there something familiar about her? "Hey, weren't you Angel's secretary?"  
  
She bolted to her feet, and backed up, keeping the desk between her and him. "I was his receptionist, thank you. Oh shit, I knew he was still alive. Look, it wasn't my fault -"  
  
"Charity, right?"  
  
That made her pause, brow furrowing in a Human as opposed to vampire way. "What? No, Harmony. I didn't think anything would really happen, you know, or at least not like that. I mean, he's Angel, right? He can take care of himself -"  
  
He stared at her, wondering if she has caught some of the Sisters nuttiness. "What are you babblin' about?"  
  
"Huh?" She was standing right in a shaft of sunlight, which should have made her go up like flash powder, but it didn't happen. Maybe it was like that Wolfram and Hart glass, magic or whatever, so employees didn't turn into torches. This place wasn't related to Wolfram and Hart, were they? (Did it matter? They were a smoking crater in the center of the city.) She looked at him curiously, backing up until she was almost flush with the wall. "He didn't send you here to kill me?"  
  
"What? Since when does Angel need a hitman anyways?"  
  
She faked a laughed - not very convincingly - and said, "Yeah, of course! I was kidding! Ha ha!" She smoothed down the back of her insanely short pink skirt, and pasted on a phony smile. "I take it you're not here for a nose job."  
  
"Get out."  
  
"Well, there's no need to be that way about it. I mean, you could use a little -"  
  
"Get out now, or I can take you too. I don't really care."  
  
She straightened up to her full height - which was impressive with those six inch "fuck me" heels she was wearing - and tried to look tough. Maybe she was a vampire, but it was hard for a Valley Girl in a mini-skirt to look imposing; she simply looked like she was pouting. "Listen mister, some of us still have to work. Blood may be free, but no one gives away Prada even if you are -"  
  
"I'm giving you a chance to leave. You're making me question why."  
  
She glared at him. "I'm not letting you hurt my boss. If you want him, you have to get through me."  
  
He held up his hand, and popped his claws.  
  
Her eyes widened, and almost bugged out. "Second door down the hall on your right."  
  
"Thanks." He started that way, walking through the pristine, earth tone colored lobby, but paused to fix her with one last threatening stare. "If I find out you had anything to do with that whole mess that got Wesley killed, I will hunt you down and throw you out into the middle of Wilshire at high noon. Understood?"  
  
She sneered slightly, but still nodded in acquiescence. She waited until he turned away again before saying, "I wouldn't hurt him. He was nice to me. He hired me in the first place."  
  
"We all make mistakes. Take my advice, Harmony - get out of the mob, while you still can. Things are about to get very ugly."  
  
She didn't reply, but as soon as he disappeared down the short sky blue corridor, he heard her rustling about, grabbing her purse. (Vampires had purses? Well, why not?) Once a coward, always a coward. What did Angel - strike that - Wesley ever see in her? She wasn't even pretty, although it was clear she thought she was.  
  
He sniffed the air, listened hard, but it was relatively clear Harmony and Kriedler were the only two people here, at least for now. Kriedler smelled Human, and the very fact that he was allied with these evil fucks in spite of his species made him want to rip him in half down the middle. What was his motive?  
  
What was he thinking? What was the greatest motive known to man? Money. And power, but those two usually went together like peanut butter and jelly - if you had power, you could get money; if you had money, you could get power. For many people, whatever you had to do to get either was worth it. No price was too high - even if you sold out your entire species.  
  
He found the office door that Kriedler was waiting behind, and walked in, retracting his claws so he didn't spoil the surprise.  
  
What a shock. He found Kriedler putting a golf ball into a coffee mug set on its side on his tightly napped blue-gray carpet. "What is it, Harmony?" He asked, watching the orange golf ball travel towards the cup, and never looking towards the door. "Did Ms. Roberts cancel her two o'clock?"  
  
"I think she'll have to," Logan replied, shutting the door. Kriedler's head snapped around so fast, he was surprised he didn't just give himself whiplash. "You'll be in no shape to put in fake boobs today."  
  
His face clouded over in righteous indignation, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped his putter. "Who the fuck are you?" Kriedler was younger than he thought, or had a good plastic surgeon - either way, he looked to be in his early thirties, with a full head of swept back dirty blond hair, and eyes almost the color of his carpet. He was not handsome, but had a bland, soft sort of face that could have belonged to almost anyone. Considering he was a plastic surgeon, it seemed like a case of "physician, heal thyself".  
  
"You don't know me, and it doesn't matter. All you have to do is tell me where Arcanum is, and I'll go."  
  
His eyes flashed with brief panic before his face became a stoic, unreadable mask. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Just the way he tensed, shifted his weight to his front foot, Logan knew the blow was coming before he even swung the club.  
  
He was aiming for his face, but Logan caught it easily with one hand, and yanked the golf club out of his grip. "Gotta keep your head down more," Logan said, and snapped the club in half over his knee. It hurt a little, but not a lot. Just doing that made Kriedler saucer eyed, and he started to back up. "Keep the elbows bent. That's one lame ass swing you got."  
  
"You're not Human, are you?"  
  
"Oh, I'm Human. I'm just ... different." He took a step towards him, and watched him stiffen, his fear making the air smell like cider vinegar. There was a cabinet on the wall he was backing towards, and Logan would have bet solid money he was going to try and go for something in there. "And don't even think about it."  
  
That made him freeze. "You're a half-breed, is that it? Who sent you?"  
  
"Do I look like a package to you?" He tossed one of the iron fragments past his head, hard enough to make him cower. "Now, tell me where Arcanum is, you lousy chickenshit, and I won't make you look like a Picasso painting."  
  
He swallowed visibly, and tried to steel himself, but it had yet to translate successfully to his face. "Y-you have n-no idea who -"  
  
Logan popped his claws, letting him see it in all its dubious glory. "Actually, I do know. And I'm going to branch out into a little surgery of my own if you don't tell me exactly what I want to know, right the fuck now."  
  
He stared at his claws wide eyed, and then crept closer, almost totally agog. "Holy Christ in a hand basket, who did that?" He didn't seem scared anymore, only impressed.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The knives." He leaned close, as if trying to look down his knuckles. "How long are these things? Are they housed in your forearms? Is it LeClare? He works with metal …"  
  
"Hey," he snapped, pulling his hand back. "I'm threatening you, dickweed."  
  
"Oh, I know, I know, but how much did that cost, including post-op? Do you have a matching set?"  
  
He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt with his free hand, and held the claws up at eye level. "There, can you see them better now?"  
  
"Not really." He frowned in thought. "What metal are they made of?"  
  
He shook him to get him to focus on his face, not his claws. "This is not show and tell on my part - it's yours. Now, unless you want to study the wounds the claws leave in your torso, spit it out."  
  
Kriedler eyed him warily, clearly measuring his options. "How about quid pro quo? Tell me something about how you got that job, and I'll tell you about Arcanum."  
  
He couldn't believe the gall of this asshole. Did he really think he was going to tell him dick about anything - especially how he got mutilated by a bunch of sick fucks? (Oh, right, what was the term Argenis used? "Body modification." What a bland, victim free way to put it.) "You first," he lied, wondering if he was going to tell this putz anything at all.  
  
Well, beyond what he could go do with himself.

* * *

No wonder he couldn't find Arcanum.  
  
Honestly, it was pretty clever. Not only did you have to know certain people to get in, but you needed to know certain people to be allowed to know where it was. It was hidden by a powerful cloaking spell, one that only certain people would be allowed through. So if he wanted to get in, he had to get one of those certain people to go with him. Kriedler wasn't one - supposedly, but he did believe him - but he did cough up the name of someone he believed was: Paul Chin. The name meant nothing to Logan, but a little searching, using a computer at a cyber-cafe, and he found what he bet was the best suspect (it turned out there were a lot of Paul Chin's in L.A.): an entertainment lawyer, high priced and high powered, vice-president of his firm. He stunk of power and privilege, with just a hint of corruption. Former employer? Wolfram and Hart. It was easy to believe he was in with the Dragons, either on the demon side or the Triad side. Was he even Human? In the stock photos he found of him, he looked around thirty, but his age was listed in the late forties. Maybe he'd gone to Kriedler for a face tightening.  
  
Of course, once Kriedler regained consciousness, he could warn him, but Logan let Kriedler know if he did that, it would be one of the very last things he ever did. As much as he admired the "craftsmanship" of his claws, he seemed to get the idea he should keep his mouth shut.  
  
Although finding the number of his law firm - Bettis, Sloane, and Slovak - wasn't difficult, getting through the fucking phone food chain was. He had his bluffed prepared before he dialed, that he was an old comrade of his from Wolfram and Hart, Ed Stevens - it was very nearly a statistical fact that every large office building in North America had at least one Ed Stevens on the payroll - who wanted to touch bases with him on a "personal" matter. The lower the secretaries were, and the farther from Chin, the easier it was to fool them. It just kept getting harder, and he was sure he was being patched through to every single secretary in Bettis, Sloane, and Slovak, like they were all playing phone tag, and he was officially designated "it".  
  
Eventually he got relayed up to his floor, where a woman with a haughty voice - maybe his secretary, maybe not - informed him Mr. Chin was meeting with Miramax (presumably with people from there and not the entire company), and wouldn't be back at the office until tomorrow. Did he believe that? Could he?  
  
He felt she was probably telling the truth as she knew it, but that didn't mean it would conform with reality. If he couldn't find where Chin lived - and there was no way he was checking out all these addresses tonight - he still had one place he could stake out.  
  
Oh god. Just because he thought of it as a stakeout didn't mean he had ever been a cop. He'd been some kid of spy at some point, right? So that was to blame. He hoped. (Why was being a cop worse than being a soldier? He'd met a similar share of dickheads in each profession. Maybe it was just the idea of authority and conforming to it that made him bristle. Which would suggest he'd had a bad experience with it at some point, even beyond the whole "injected with molten metal" thing.)  
  
Having made his decision, he headed off towards B,S, & S (oh, how he loved those initials), wondering if there'd be a good burrito place along the way, or even a coffee shop - he wasn't that picky.  
  
He just knew he was in for a long, boring night.

* * *

6   
Paul looked over the post-it Sylvia had slapped on her desk, and tried to make sense of it. Ed Stevens from Wolfram and Hart called him? The one from accounting? Or the one from the clean up crew? Truth be told, he didn't know either that well, so why would they be calling him now?  
  
Well, duh, why else - they needed a job. Since W&H were no more, they were probably hurting. The shitty economy, combined with the fact that his bosses retreated to a Hell dimension before writing out a reference, was probably a devastating one-two punch. Success always brought the wannabes and hangers-on out of the woodwork. He crumpled up the note and tossed it in the garbage can. He had more pressing concerns.  
  
Namely, Arbogast "losing" Drusilla. The stupid ass Belial had managed to get her to L.A., but she's said something about "Bob can't see me", and disappeared. He wasn't sure if this was a problem … yet. They wanted Dru working for them, but considering how unpredictable she was, maybe it was best if it didn't work out. As for this mysterious "Bob", there was only one who came up on the hot list, the same one who was on W&H's "Do Not Approach" list: "Maximum Bob" Oberon. Supposedly he was out of town right now, but there was no way to predict what an older Belial would do, especially if he was a weapons dealer, and especially if he seemed to wield unimaginable power. Lila once told him that Bob was not exactly a Belial, but working for the enemies of the Senior Partners, which didn't really make sense: why would a liar demon, and an arms merchant on top of that, side with them? It was probably just scuttlebutt, an attempt to pump up or explain away his mythos. Honestly, he didn't care if he was just a plain old master sorcerer, as long as he didn't get in his way.  
  
Should he really be concerned about what crazy bitch Dru might do? He didn't give a fuck how many people killed or in the course of what, but if she talked … now, that could be a problem. But only if people believed her, or made sense of any fucking thing she said. That was the up side of hiring an assassin for whom sanity and coherence were unknown qualities  
  
But he couldn't help but be concerned. He was a lawyer, and it was his job to predict what problems might arise, and cut them off at the knees before they could even get started. But Dru was such an unpredictable can of worms, it was impossible to guess what problems she could cause. She could bring the roof down on their heads; she could forget about them and go for ice cream. She was a precog who couldn't control her abilities, and couldn't always make sense of them. She had an advantage, but only half the time; the other half of the time, she was too fucked up to be any good. Still, she was possibly the most vicious vampire left alive, and that was no small thing, considering the breed. Her insanity made her an unpredictable fighter, and, on top of that, she had the precognitive ability to suss out her sparring partner before things broke down to fisticuffs. If she was tuned into this planet, she was more than a match for Logan Yashida - or anybody, really. Was that why she was scared of Bob? Did she know something about him they didn't know?  
  
He glanced out his window, appreciating his view of the newly full moon. That reminded him - did they have a werewolf lined up? He really had to look into that once he got home. But for right now he enjoyed how close the moon looked when you were thirty stories above the ground, as if parked between the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles, a chained god. It would have been even prettier if the pollution didn't give it a kind of yellowish haze, like someone had taken a major piss on it. What a world.  
  
"The man is dead and the razor smiles, a shiny love song and a quick incision," a female voice whispered in a sing song voice, making him jump. He spun around in his chair, and saw a slender figure slink into his office. He knew he didn't leave the door open, but he hadn't heard her open it. Only when she came into the light did he recognize her. "Cut him down on television …"  
  
"Drusilla?" He almost stood, but then thought better of it. She might be a mental case, but even she would have to recognize his air of authority. "Did Arbogast bring you here?"  
  
She made a noise like a swallowed laugh. "The blue liar was boring. I wanted to play."  
  
Did he want to know what her idea of "playing" was? He supposed he could guess. "Well, uh … okay. Did you have fun?"  
  
She smiled, but it was an odd grin, wide and leering. He suddenly thought of hyenas, and he wasn't sure why. "He's out there, you know. The air is fraught. "  
  
He looked beyond her shoulder, yet saw nothing but darkness in the hallway. "Arbogast?"  
  
She wagged a finger at him, like his third grade teacher did whenever he pulled Paige Hartley's ponytail. "Silly billy. The huntee is now the hunter. He's out there right now."  
  
He glanced back out the window, and felt a cold trickle of fear down his back. "Yashida? Is that what you're saying?"  
  
"He didn't see me. Nobody sees me, unless I want them to. Do you think he remembers me?"  
  
That made him look back at her. She continued to sashay about half way through the room, and now it was starting to make him a little nervous. What was she doing, and why was she here? Did Arbogast tell her where his office was? "Do you know him?"  
  
"We met once. He was with the hurtful green girl, and helped the bad people destroy the hole in the worlds. It had such a pretty scream too."  
  
"Uh huh." Why was he worried? Clearly she was in one of her exceedingly incoherent moods. "Would you like a drink? I'm pretty sure the janitorial staff is still on the tenth floor; you could drink any one of them."  
  
"I'm saving myself," she said, making a strange noise in the back of her throat. It was somewhere between a hum and purr. "I'm going to feast tonight."  
  
"On Yashida?" You had to admire her confidence if nothing else.  
  
Her eyes flashed with mirth, but it had a hard edge to it. "I remember him; his mind is like broken glass. Your people don't remember him like they think they do. You can't kill him with the future ; he wakes up every day with ashes in his mouth. You kill him with the past. He can die a million times, unless you hit the right spot." She tapped her forehead with a fingernail, and its edge was so sharp she left a crescent shaped line of blood in her alabaster skin.  
  
"Head shot?" Trying to make out what she was saying was giving him a headache. Maybe Arbogast had "lost" her on purpose.  
  
She scowled at him, nose wrinkling in disgust. "He's a tin toy. He was cut open and had his insides scoop out like a pumpkin; he's a mussel in a metal shell. Spitting out little balls of fire will hurt you more than him."  
  
He stared at her in amazement. So that's what happened when vampires went nuts. The funny thing was, he was sure she'd be a hit on the beat/abstract poetry circuit. He almost wanted to represent her and see how far he could take her. As long as she didn't slaughter an entire audience, he bet he could get her doing blurbs on one of the "arty" cable channels, like Sundance. "Umm, okay. Listen, I was just about to go -"  
  
"You're not even trying to understand," she interrupted crossly, stamping her foot like a bratty little girl. "That's why you people always lose."  
  
He opened his lower desk drawer to get his briefcase, but stopped long enough to shoot her a dirty look. "Always lose? Have you taken a good look around, Drusilla? We have celebrities breaking down the door to hire us; Christo did our lobby. And now we're solidifying our power base in a way you parasites can't even begin to imagine. We're winning, sweetheart, and we're doing it in style. Slaughtering villages is so fifteenth century."  
  
Her pale eyes narrowed, and her frowned deepened, gouging lines into her otherwise eternally young and flawless face. "Stupid man, you've already lost. You just don't know it yet."  
  
He stood up, briefcase in hand, and wondered if hitting the crazy bitch with it would do any good. "You know, Dru, the bosses thought bringing you in would be a good idea, but clearly they don't know how unkind the years have been to you. We all know your history, how crazy you are, but somehow you've become crazier. Who knew that was even possible? Go home, Drusilla - wherever that is. Your services are no longer necessary."  
  
Her glare was unrelenting, but what made it worse was the slow grin creeping across her face. The hate never left her eyes, and seemed in direct odds with the rest of her expression. "Here he comes."  
  
"What?" He knew she was just saying that to annoy him - Yashida wasn't here, no more than he was a "tin toy". "Fine, I'll meet him on the way down. Are you coming?"  
  
She cocked her head to the side, and studied him like a fascinating insect. "I'm staying right here. And so are you."  
  
And before he could demand she leave his office, she was right on top of him, eyes as yellow as the moon. "I have to an appetizer before the main course," she cooed, ramming his head into the floor.

* * *

Gaining access to the building was almost too easy. You'd think a big law firm would have better security measures, but no. He listened for the telltale hum of infrared detectors, silent alarms (which weren't silent to him), and heard nothing. There was a cleaning crew spread out over several floors, but not the thirtieth - not yet - where Chin's office was. He took the elevator up to the twenty second floor, and then took the remaining eight flights up via the emergency stairwell. It was doubtful he or any bodyguards he might have would be freaked out by the sound of an elevator when the janitorial team was doing its nightly sweep, but he didn't want to give them any warning at all.  
  
When he reached the access door of the thirtieth floor, he knew something was wrong almost instantly - he didn't beat the custodians up here, it seemed. Contrary to all logic, they had started from the top and worked their way down, or at least he assumed so, since the reek of lemon scented ammonia based cleanser nearly knocked him on his ass. It was like he had been whacked across the face with a two by four that was actually a full sized bus. He grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his nose and mouth, trying to cut down the stink as he entered the thirtieth floor.  
  
His eyes watered and he felt nauseous, even as his nasal passages seemed to numb under the assault. That was too much fucking cleanser for the janitors to use - could it have been deliberate? Someone pouring out a whole bottle of this stuff in the hallway to keep him from smelling anything. But that would mean someone knew he could do that, and that he was coming, which the immediate lack of guards and security seemed to indicate was not the case.  
  
Unless this was a trap, of course. Waiting to be sprung as soon as he entered Chin's large office, at the end of the hall.  
  
He approached warily, and listened at the door for several seconds, swallowing back bile, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. He heard nothing, but he wouldn't trust that. He couldn't afford to trust anything right now.  
  
He stepped back and kicked open the door, hoping to shock or provoke a reaction from whoever was inside, but nothing happened. All the lights were off, but the full moon and the light of neighboring skyscrapers still gave enough illumination for him to see by. And the obscenely large office looked perfectly devoid of people, although the large leather desk chair was turned away from him. Was that ever a good sign?  
  
He let go of his shirt, as it was hard to be taken seriously with a shirt over your nose, "So what's the play here, Chin? Did you think lemon scented Lysol would be enough to scare me off?" He sniffed, as his nose continued to run, and his eyes continued to tear up.  
  
There was no response; he didn't even shift in his chair. He carefully looked around, but it honestly looked like they were alone. Except … didn't it feel like he was being watched? Maybe there was a camera somewhere in the shadows pooled at the edges of the room.  
  
He really didn't like this. Everything about this was wrong, even from a trap standpoint. If he had a hand to show, he should have tipped it by now.  
  
Logan walked over to him, getting behind his desk and swinging his chair around. Chin - or a guy who could have been Chin - was certainly in it, dressed in an expensive suit with a leather attaché on his lap. But he was clearly dead, his head lolling to the side, revealing a pair of nasty bite marks in the side of his neck. Holy shit - a vampire did him? Why?  
  
He suddenly became aware of movement somewhere in the shadows, and as he turned, a familiar female voice said cheerfully, "Let's fly."  
  
And she slammed into him, full force, and sent him falling backwards - straight into the window wall.  
  
Although the tempered glass cut into his skin even as he fell through it, the burst of fresh (and smoggy) night air was welcome after the ammonia and citrus scented hell that floor had been. But as he fell, he stared up at his passenger, the vampire who had attacked him, and was honestly surprised by who he saw. "Drusilla?"  
  
She was grinning down at him, her hands gripping his wrists tightly, clearly trying to keep him from using his claws. "I just want to play," she purred.  
  
Even as they fell, he knew he was as good as dead. Impact, even from this height, wouldn't kill him, although he imagined that the instant pulping of several internal organs would hurt an unbelievable amount. It would cripple him, and most likely knock him out for a little bit, giving Dru the opportunity to rip his throat out, or do whatever she wanted to do to him. He tried to pull away and couldn't, and knew that they were about to hit the ground, although he didn't know how close they were. When you fell from a great height, time seemed to both contract and expand, slowing and speeding up in odd waves. He did the only thing he felt he could do - he smashed his forehead into her face, causing her noise to break with an audible snap.  
  
He heard her make a surprised, hurt noise just before he crashed into Earth.  
  
Except it wasn't Earth. He landed on something metal, a car, maybe the van of the cleaning crew parked at the curb, and as his consciousness fled away from him, narrowing to a distant point swallowed by darkness, he heard the honestly useless electronic bleeting of a car alarm.  
  
He made himself move, no matter how much it hurt, no matter the fact that he knew his eyes were open and yet he couldn't see, could barely hear the car alarm screaming pointlessly into the night. He was trying to hold on to consciousness with all he had, but it was running like sand through his fingers, and the pain in his entire body was so overwhelming it almost wasn't pain at all; it was just an odd, uncomfortable heat that was so wrong it felt like a violation.  
  
"My nose!" Dru cried, and he thought he heard the crunch of broken glass. At least she was off of him, but by the sound of it, she wasn't hurt at all. And why would she be hurt by the fall? He had seen the way vampires could jump, scale buildings; falls didn't hurt if you were already dead. "Bad boy! I only wanted to play! Now look what you've done!"  
  
His vision was starting to come back, blurry but with enough light that he could almost make out shapes. The pain was getting worse, though, and he could taste blood in his mouth. He made himself roll onto the hood of the van, broken glass from the blown out windshield crunching beneath him as a terrible pain scissor through his abdomen, and he had to turn his head to the side and spit out a mouthful of blood. He wanted to ask her what the fuck she was doing here - if she was killing the Three Dragons, then they were on the same side - but he didn't have the strength to pull in enough air as of yet. He needed a minute to recover here - a minute he was certain he didn't have.  
  
As if to confirm that, Dru grabbed him by the leg and yanked him violently onto the pavement, making his head bounce on the asphalt. Luckily - or not - his brain was so rattled, that hardly hurt at all. "You're just a Human now, like any other Human," she cooed. "Poor baby." He felt her run a hand through his hair, pull him up to a mock sitting position where he was leaning against her chest. He could feel her ice cold skin as a shocking counterpoint to his own skin, now raging hot with the heat of frantic healing. "Let Mummy make you feel all better."  
  
"Dru," he croaked, or at least tried to. Even to his own ears, it sounded kind of like "Druh". He was attempting to will strength into his arms, or any goddamn part of his body, but he felt as useless as a rag doll at the moment. What had Dru said - a Human like any other Human? Maybe so. He'd forgotten how strong vampires could be, especially after they'd fed.  
  
"Shh," she whispered into his ear, her other hand sliding down his chest. "For such a hard man, you break so easily. But don't be ashamed - I can break anyone. I learned from the best." She tangled her fingers in his hair and yanked his head back at a painful angle. "Daddy had a taste, didn't he? Now it's my turn."  
  
And with that, she sunk her teeth into his throat. 


	5. Part 5

When a vampire bit you, of course it hurt. But after the initial needle like pain, two things seemed to happen - adrenaline spiked, but so did endorphins. Either that or vamp saliva had some kind of natural sedative in it, something that made the experience feel strangely good, especially since it was undoubtedly killing you. It just made death seem not so bad.  
  
But the painkiller was just what Logan needed. It rushed through his body like adrenaline, like a speed shot straight to the blood, and he used it to gather what little strength he had and throw a hard elbow.  
  
He hit Dru flush in the face, just beneath the eye socket, and he heard something crack before she shoved him away, so hard he ended up kissing the asphalt.  
  
"That hurt!" She snapped, sounding surprised. Surprised that it hurt, or he had enough strength to do that? "Naughty boy. You're no fun."  
  
He crawled away, put some distance between them, before turning to look at her. She was sitting back on her haunches, still in vamp face, a bit of his blood smearing her lower lip. He wanted to ask her why she was here, and why she attacked him, but the latter question was silly. She was a vampire; that was all the reason she needed.  
  
So, instead, he took a deep breath and asked, "Why'd you kill 'im?" It sounded kind of mushy and run together: whudukillem.  
  
She licked his blood off her lip with a disturbingly seductive purr, and then seemed to understand what he was asking and pointed at the sky. "The man in the tower? He was very mean and hurtful. He thought I was a liar. Do I look Belial to you?"  
  
He had seen many a dead person in vamp face. For some reason, Dru looked more disturbing in it than anyone else. Maybe it was because there was something so delicate and childlike about her; the contrast was incredibly jarring. Or maybe it was just that even her yellow, demonic eyes had a sort of far away look to them, like she wasn't completely here even now. She could kill you, but she'd always be thinking about something else. Death impersonal.  
  
"No." She was still too close to him, and he was pretty sure he couldn't stand yet. He needed more time to heal, he could still taste blood coming up his throat, but it was obvious Dru was never going to give him time. And even though he was pretty sure the wound in his throat had healed, it still hurt, like maybe he'd gotten a sliver of broken glass beneath the skin. "Why'd you try to kill me?" Again, a mishmash of syllables that almost made sense.  
  
Luckily, Dru spoke gibberish. "Do you really think you can die, love?" Her yellow eyes seemed luminous, and her porcelain skin had an almost ruddy glow to it, like she was really alive. But that happened to vampires after feeding. "You're like a jack in the box." She mimed turning a handle, and made a noise that was probably supposed to be jack-in-the-box music, but was just honestly tuneless and creepy. "They put you in boxes and bury you deep underground, but you always spring right back up." She mimed the motion with her oddly delicate hands, her fingers fluttering. "You're like us, only ... not."  
  
Us? As in what, the undead? Vampires? Crazy like a shithouse rat. What the hell had Angelus done to her exactly? "Then leave me the fuck alone."  
  
She wagged a finger at him, back and forth, almost like a metronome, giving him a sharp, sly grin. "Didn't your Mummy ever teach you it's rude to curse? Oh, you don't remember your Mummy, do you? I remember mine. I found her, you know. After her throat was ripped out." The memory made her grin falter, transforming it into a scowl. "She was supposed to be making tea. Her blood was in the pot, and all the little china cups. It looked like syrup ..."  
  
Okay. He didn't know if that was real or not, but he almost felt like he'd fallen into some weird, post-modern version of Alice In Wonderland. And he was Alice, only he didn't have a nice blue dress on. Which was probably a shame, now that he thought about it - things could hardly be worse. He decided to try and pull himself back on his elbows, put even more distance between them. But if he could keep her talking, maybe he could actually heal up enough to cut her fucking head off.  
  
Dru glanced at him sharply, as if she knew what he was planning, but it seemed she was still staring out from a past he couldn't know. "It was Daddy's fault. And Daddy liked you."  
  
"Daddy?" Was she implying he knew her father. he had no fucking idea what her last name was or when she was actually last alive! How could he know shit?!  
  
Her scowl was sharper now, malevolence giving her yellow eyes a queer flatness. "He's fading away in the distance, but I know he's still there. And I know why he liked you. Your blood tastes like summer."  
  
Wow, he was so completely lost it wasn't even funny. "How the fuck can my blood taste like summer? What, suntan lotion and hot asphalt? Make some fucking sense, Dru! I know you can when you wanna!" Actually, he didn't know; he was just hoping.  
  
But he wasn't sure she even heard him. "You don't need it; you don't even want it. You should have stayed underground. I can help." And with that she lunged at him like a tiger.  
  
It took everything he had accumulated - which wasn't much at all - but he popped the claws on one hand and brought them up to meet her.  
  
If she saw them, she couldn't avoid them. He cut her, ripped through her flesh, but nowhere important or all that deep. Still, she let out a startled cry of pain and surprise, and quickly rolled away, avoiding any follow up slashes. She came up with an arm around her stomach, her dress torn and small, slow rivulets of blood just beginning to streak the fabric. She was snarling at him, but more in hate than pain. "Now you've found your claws."  
  
"Try that again and I'll rip you in half. Think you can survive that?"  
  
Her glare was icy hard. "Your stomach's bigger than your eyes. You're still in jagged little pieces; you can barely move."  
  
"I don't have to move. Only you do."  
  
For some reason, she started to giggle. "Vicious little thing. You're like the brother I never had."  
  
"Is that an insult?"  
  
As she stood up, still holding her ripped stomach, she pointed an accusing finger at him. "They're coming for you. And they know where you're weakest. " She tapped her forehead and gave him a leering grin. "Can you fight the thought?"  
  
"What, telepaths? I can fight telepaths."  
  
She shook her head, giggling again. "Fight yourself. You do, and you always lose."  
  
He stared at her, and wondered why he was listening to a single thing the psycho bitch said. But he had a feeling she wasn't talking about the Dragons. "What the fuck are you talking about?"  
  
But all she did was blow him a kiss. "See you around, pet. Sooner than you think." She then turned and disappeared into the pools of shadows between streetlights, and he wondered why no one from the cleaning service had come to shut off their fucking car alarm. Could they not hear the damn thing?  
  
"I know that's a threat," he shouted after her, suddenly realizing why no one had responded to the fucking alarm. You needed to be alive - or at least undead - to respond to it. She had a bottle of cleanser, and a dead body in Chin's office. He suddenly wondered if the sounds of floor buffers and vacuums he'd heard were simply machines left on after their users had been cut down. Dru was good; she was too damn good.  
  
He spit out another mouthful of blood and sagged to the sidewalk, wanting to pass out but sure he couldn't afford to. For one thing, he couldn't afford to be found outside a building where several murdered people waiting to be discovered, and for another, he knew Dru was still hanging around, waiting to see if he would pass out so she could finish him off. He needed to get the fuck out of here. Which introduced problem number three - how did you do that when you couldn't get up?  
  
Shit, why did he always have these kinds of problems?

7

As it turned out, Rags's place was closer than his motel, so he decided to crash there until he had the stamina to stand up for more than three minutes at a time. Dru probably wouldn't think to look for him there … but then again, how did she know he was going to be seeing Chin? He thought he had stepped in the middle of something, so demon score settling, but maybe it was more complicated than that. Dru had some kind of psychic ability, right? Maybe she knew he was going after Chin, and would probably break him, so rather than let him get access to Arcanum, she took care of the possible security leak by killing Chin before he could arrive. Maybe she was working for the Dragons after all. If she did have second sight, she would always be a step ahead of him. And while just keeping Chin safe might have been a better option, she seemed like the type of person who would find a "scorched earth" policy not only reasonable, but preferable.  
  
This was where he would love to call in Chuck, sic him on her, but Dru was a vampire, and it wouldn't work. Bob could make it work, but Bob was off looking for Angel, right? Besides, he really didn't want him in on this.  
  
It was stupid to feel like a cheating spouse, but in a way he did. After all, the Powers and Bob always seemed to be at odds, although they weren't precisely enemies; what they were was hard to say. It seemed more like a family feud of some sort, each side blaming the other for some incident at a family barbecue that caused a major rift for years, even though no one could remember the specifics of the argument anymore, only that it was really bad and unforgivable. Now he had found him inexplicably in the middle, and why? He was starting to suspect the Powers were just trying to piss off Bob.  
  
He didn't expect to find Rags home, and yet he must have made a lot of noise staggering up the stairs, as Rags threw open the door before he could reach it. He gaped at him, yellow glass eyes wide … well, possibly. He wasn't blinking. "Fucking 'ell, who flushed you down the crapper?!"  
  
"Dru kicked my ass," he admitted, then chuckled. It was pretty funny, now that he thought about it.  
  
"Dru? Who's Dru?" He asked, and stood back as Logan fell through the door. Rags seemed to be dressed up pretty nice for him, meaning his jeans were clean and the t-shirt looked fresh out of the package. He also smelled vaguely of mouthwash and mousse, with just a hint of scotch.  
  
There was no good place to collapse (except for Rags's bed, and no, no way), so he just hit the wall and slid down it to the floor, really wanting to pass out. Walking shouldn't have taken so much out of him, and yet it did. "Drusilla. A vampire. Maybe you don't know her."  
  
His brow furrowed in thought as he considered that, and then, as soon as he shut the door, he gasped as if he'd been punched. "Angel's Drusilla? Fuckin' Zeus in a bucket, she didn't kill you?"  
  
"Do I look dead?" Now the bite mark in his neck was itching. Was there something in there? There was one wound still a bit open, and he dug his fingernails in it until he felt something hard, which he managed to grab and pull out of his neck.  
  
For a minute, he didn't know what he was looking at. But then he got it - it was a fang. When he elbowed Dru, one of her fangs must have broken off in his throat. Although gross on the surface, he liked the idea that he snapped off one of her fangs. But knowing vamps, they just grew them back like sharks.  
  
"Yeah, kinda. Half dead."  
  
He glared at him, tossing the fang across the floor. "Well, I'm not. I'm just tryin' to figure out why she attacked me, and how she coulda kicked my ass." Well, she had seen him fighting on Dis, hadn't she? The cage matches. She knew to watch out for his claws. How did she know about his ability to smell better than most Humans? How did she know a fall would disable him? Maybe it was a guess; maybe she hoped it would kill him.  
  
Rags snorted in disbelief. "She's got the sight, hasn't she? She can fig - oh fuck! Did she follow you here?!"  
  
"She didn't follow me."  
  
"You can't be sure o' that! Motherfucking 'ell …" he muttered, stomping off to his bathroom. He rattled some things around for a moment, but then came out with a burning stick of incense that smelled quite a bit like cedar and marshmallows. "Oh holy sifters," he said, walking around waving the stick. The smell made him cough. "Protect your 'umble servant -"  
  
"What the fuck are you doing?"  
  
"Gettin' the Gorgons to protect my place from vampires, doofus," he snapped back. "Now let me finish."  
  
What did he expect from a High Priest of Medusa, or whatever the fuck his actual title was? The fragrant smoke was making his eyes burned, so he closed them, listening to Rags's strangely soothing Cockney chant. He did not get these weird religions, not in the least. But, even so, multiple gods made more sense to him than just a single one, although he had no idea why. Perhaps it followed a certain kind of logic.  
  
Wait a minute. Why did he have his ceremonial incense in the bathroom?

* * *

By the time McClendon arrived, Logan had Mac assuring everyone in town that everything was all right, it was just that there had been an "accident" at Camp Baker, and people were to stay clear of the scene until they had the area "secured". In short, lie his head off. Mac himself barely got a glimpse of the scene, but saw enough that he was happy to return to town.  
  
When McClendon and two of his people - he called them Brock and Levitt - arrived and saw the scene, all of them paled, and as soon as he saw the first body, Brock bolted into the woods and vomited up whatever breakfast he'd had. Even McClendon (why couldn't he think of him as Glenn? It was so strange …) seemed a little unsteady as Logan gave him the tour, showing him all the bodies. There were eight in all, and he was glad it was such a small camp.  
  
There was no way to avoid mucking through the blood, and by this time his nose had become inured to it. He could still smell it, intermingled with the rich scent of earth, but he was growing used to it, just like he kind of had to get used to the smell of himself. Glenn wiped a hand over his mouth, looking like he was about to join Brock at the edge of the woods. "I've never seen anything like this," he finally said, his voice slightly shaky. "It's … hideous."  
  
"That's one word for it. Someone was pretty goddamn angry."  
  
Glenn looked at him, equally shocked and curious. "Angry?"  
  
Had he said something wrong? Was the rage not obvious to others? He wished he had never figured out he wasn't like other people - or they weren't like him. He wasn't really sure how that worked. Could he really be the only … well, freak in the entire world? "Or insane. This wasn't the work of a reasonable man."  
  
"No, I know." He paused, staring down at the blood soaked ground like he was searching for clues, and Logan watched his jaw muscles work. "What do you think, Logan? A logger got drunk, and simply … what would you call it? Lost his mind?"  
  
"Maybe. Sometimes camps work for competing companies, and sometimes some of these loggers know each other … and not in a good way."  
  
"No one …" he paused, swallowing hard. "No one from your town could have done this, could they?"  
  
The question was shocking, though he had expected it. "No way. A lot of 'em have their reasons to hide, but do this? I don't know anyone even remotely capable of this."  
  
Glenn nodded but it was in a strange way, like his neck was a spring. He was so discombobulated by the crime scene he looked like he had to go have a little lie down. "We'll … I'll get a call into Calgary. I'll need to interview the men at the other logging camps -"  
  
"Let me handle that, Glenn."  
  
He raised an eyebrow at that in curiosity, but his brown eyes betrayed a certain amount of hope. "Are you sure?"  
  
He nodded, wondering how good a liar he was. "They see RCMP uniforms, they'll shut down. They're used to dealing with me. I'll get more out of 'em." He couldn't say he should be able to tell if they were lying to him, as he was pretty sure most people could only guess, with little to no physical clues.  
  
Glenn thought about it for a moment, then nodded with more conviction. "Maybe I should send one of my guys to shadow you, in case there's trouble."  
  
He scoffed. "Think I can't handle trouble?"  
  
"This level of trouble?"  
  
He shrugged, not sure how much he should admit here. It might sound like braggadocio. "If someone tries to cleave my chest open with a hatchet, I wish them luck."  
  
He shook his head and stared off at the trees, in the general direction of Camp Spencer, the nearest logging camp. "You always were a tough son of a bitch. Have an angel on your shoulder, Woods?"  
  
That made him feel like laughing, but he didn't dare. Glenn wouldn't understand it. "Something like that. I'll let you know what I find."  
  
He turned and headed back to the woods, not where Brock was throwing up but back towards town. Camp Spencer was quite a rough patch through the woods, and then Camp Anderson was an even longer stretch. He ruled out visiting Camp Valentine, as it was too far away, too far up the slope, and if the killer came from there, he'd still be on his journey back.  
  
He needed to use one of the Heller's horses if he wanted to make good time. There were no cars in town capable of traversing the rough and uneven terrain, the occasionally muddy slicks they jokingly called "roads". Maybe a motorcycle could make it, but no one owned a motorcycle that he knew about.  
  
Once he got back to town, he was met by a small crowd, consisting of the older Hellers, Doc Withers, Jon O'Neil, Maddy Black, and "Father" Jeremiah Olson, the supposed "priest" of this town, who led services every Sunday for the few people who were interested. The thing was, Logan had never found any proof that Jeremiah had any connections at all to any known church, so he figured he was just an overzealous religious nut.  
  
Mac was at the back of the crowd, looking like he was about to have a stroke; controlling clamoring crowds was not one of his strengths. They began peppering him with panicky questions at all once, so he had to wave his hands in the air and say, "Whoa people! One question at a time!"  
  
"It's a bear, isn't it?" William Heller asked.  
  
That caught Logan short. "What?"  
  
"We heard a bear attacked the camp," Olson contributed helpfully. "Killed 'em all."  
  
He glared at him. "Since when do -" But he instantly stopped himself, as he realized that was a great cover story. Saying all those men had been murdered would cause a panic. A bloodthirsty bear would also cause a panic, but a much milder one, one that could be contained and controlled. "Now we don't know the whole story," he cautioned. "We think the loggers mortally wounded it, so there's no need to panic. The RCMP's are out searching the woods for its body right now."  
  
There was murmuring and more questions, but they seemed generally mollified. He left them to talk among themselves about the best ways to trap a bear, while Mac followed him nervously. "Was it really a bear?" He whispered.  
  
"As far as they're concerned, yes," he replied, and noticed Celia standing outside the tavern. She was in the doorway, hands pressed to her mouth as if stifling a scream, eyes wide and red rimmed with horror. When she saw him, she stared for a second as if she didn't recognize him, or didn't want to. She then quickly turned away, eyes squeezing tightly shut, before she fled inside the building.  
  
"Celia," he shouted after her, quickly following, leaving Mac behind.  
  
He wasn't all that surprised to find the tavern was empty now, save for her. The smell of coffee and slightly overdone eggs lingered in the air, and while he was reminded he hadn't eaten, he was far from hungry. He'd be surprised if he was able to eat at all today or tomorrow.  
  
Her back was to him, slender shoulders shaking as she fought to keep the tears back. "What's wrong?" He asked, feeling both stupid and helpless. It was probably obvious what was wrong, but he had no idea what he could do about it.  
  
She sniffed hard, and finally turned to face him, but didn't quite commit; she stared off at a speck of dust on the floor just to the right of his boots. "I've heard, I know … are they all dead?"  
  
Should he tell her the truth? Well, she was an adult, and she would hear soon enough. "Yeah."  
  
She winced as if he'd hit her. "And Matt saw all that -"  
  
Was that what this was all about? "No. Most of the bodies were inside. He saw one, tops, and he didn't know what he was looking at. "  
  
"Are you certain of that?" Her stare was so intense, he followed her gaze, and saw he'd left bloody footprints on the floor. Shit - he was sure he'd lost it all in the woods. "Matt didn't see it. It looked just like mud until you -"  
  
"I can't believe this," she exclaimed, her voice angry in spite of being fractured by sobs. "Matty's all I have. I can't lose him … " She flung herself at him, collapsing against his chest as if she had been trying to throw herself at the floor and missed. "I should have never come here," she sobbed into his neck, her tears hot and streaking his skin. "I should have kept going towards the coast. Bad luck just seems to follow us wherever we go … "  
  
He could sympathize, more than she could possibly ever know. "Please don't cry," he told her, stroking her silky hair. He never knew what to do when a woman cried, he always felt awkward and helpless, but it was nice to hold her, to breathe in her scent of violets and coffee. He'd probably stayed away from women for too long, but after what happened to Sophie, he wasn't sure he could handle it anymore. Physical pain was one thing; he didn't like it, but he could take it. Emotional pain was another beast altogether. And there seemed to be something especially cruel about watching someone you loved die a piece at a time, always aware that you didn't get sick, you didn't age, and nothing you could ever do would transfer your ability to them. You just got to stand there and watch, and wonder how many other times you would watch it happen in your life, your stupid life that seemed far too long, that stretched before you more like a threat than a promise.  
  
Why? Why him? What had happened to make him this way? He scoured medical journals when he found them, many from other countries, looking for some sign of his … well, disease? Is that what you would call it? He'd found no name for his affliction, at least not there. He found something in the teachings of Buddhism, though. Karma. If he could make himself believe it - and he found it difficult to believe anything at all; he felt he was living proof that not only was there no god at all, no matter what name you gave it, but proof that Mother Nature herself had a cruel sense of humor - this was his punishment for something, a payment for some terrible sin. And maybe it was. Honestly, that seemed to make the most sense of all the theories he had been able to put together over the years. But what could he have done that was so terrible that he would deserve a fate quite like this?  
  
"It'll be all right," he told her, hoping it wasn't a lie.  
  
"No, it won't," she replied, her words muffled against his skin. "How can it be?"  
  
"I won't let anything happen to you or Matt, I promise." And he meant it, but he didn't know if it would do any good.  
  
"How can you promise that?" She asked, looking up at him. Tears continued to spill out of her dark eyes, and it was heartbreaking. He gently wiped them away with his thumb, and in the back of his mind, wondered why she was so distraught. It wasn't over the deaths of those men, whom she mostly didn't like anyways; it seemed to be over what they represented. Wasn't that curious?  
  
"I won't let anything hurt you," he replied. It wasn't an answer to her direct question, but it was the best he could do.  
  
She stared up into his eyes, as if searching for a hint the could be lying, and said, "I want to believe you."  
  
"Then do," he said, and slowly lowered his face towards her. He was waiting for her to push him away, but she didn't. He didn't kiss her, just brushed his lips against hers, waiting for some sign he was moving too fast. It didn't happen, so he kissed her softly, and after a moment's hesitation she responded, softly kissing his lower lip. He knew he was letting his feelings get in the way of something important, but right now he didn't honestly care.  
  
But his concentration on her was pulled away by a curious noise outside. It was the crunching of tires on gravel, and the hum of an engine - a car. But not one he had heard before. As he glanced over his shoulder towards the tavern's windows, she followed his gaze, no longer crying. "Who's that?"  
  
He shook his head. He couldn't see from the window, so he let her go and went to the door to have a look.  
  
Parked at the base of main street was a black car, the style and model of which he had never seen before. It gleamed as black as a beetle's carapace, and he assumed it was brand new, in more respects than one. The man that got out of the car was wearing a natty charcoal suit, with leather shoes far too good for the dusty dirt road, his brown hair tightly combed back, and parted so sharply he could have done it with a knife. His eyes looked small and pale behind wire rimmed glasses, and his ramrod straight posture set off all sorts of alarm bells in Logan's mind. His first thought - mortician - was quickly scrapped in favor of the more obvious and disturbing answer: government. This guy was clearly government, and it instantly unleashed butterflies in his stomach.  
  
The G man glanced around the town, taking in the remains of the small crowd with a glance that was both quick and dismissive, and when his eyes settled on Logan, a slow smile spread across his face. But it was wrong; it not only seemed hard and smug, but it never reached his cold eyes. "Logan … Woods, I presume?" He asked, starting to walk slowly towards him. "I've been looking for you for ages. You don't know how good it is to see you … looking so well."  
  
Oh no. What part of his past had caught up with him now? 


	6. Part 6

8  
  
When he came to on a wooden floor, his first thought was that he was back in the Canadian Rockies, hiding in cabins, running from a vague but gnawing feeling whose dimensions he could hardly guess.  
  
But he instantly dismissed it, as there were several flaws in the scenario. For one thing, the room smelled of tacos and men's dirty sweat socks, and it wasn't cold; it was, in fact, uncomfortably stuffy. He tasted dried blood in his mouth, and faintly heard downstairs cash registers ringing.  
  
He remembered then. Rags - right. He must have passed out, or - as he preferred - fallen asleep. He sat up and realized he had slept at a very uncomfortable angle, so he had to move his neck side to side, and rub it to work the kinks out.  
  
Come to think of it, even though his mind was a complete and utter waste back then, back when he was breaking into people's abandoned cabins along the range, he realized now his survival instincts - even though he was insane at the time - were impeccable. Why had he gone farther up into the higher elevations during winter, without proper clothing and with no idea where the fuck he was going or what he would do when he got there? Simple: they would not follow. It was cold, not what he thought of as "American cold", but bitter cold, the killing kind, the kind that could easily give you frostbite, the kind that could make your engine die and leave you stranded. Snow clouds ruled out any possibility of being seen from the air, and the fact that he stayed away from whatever roads were around there meant it would be that much harder for them to get a bead on him. He could survive those conditions, no matter what, but knew they could not. They would wait until the worst of it was over, until it got closer to spring, and by that time he was long gone. Maybe the real reason they wrote him off as MPD (missing, presumed dead) was so they didn't have to bother trying to look for him.  
  
Wow. What did it mean when your auto-pilot was a sharper tactician than your conscious mind? Oh shit, he didn't want to think about it.  
  
He figured Rags wasn't home because the t.v. wasn't on, and his bed was empty. It was kind of creepy to be in a stranger's apartment - and although he knew Rags, it was only in the most casual sense - and have him know you were there. Breaking and entering was bad enough, but just leaving him here …  
  
Wait a minute. Did that mean something bad could have happened to Rags?  
  
He used his bathroom, not looking around too much at all (and there was no way he was taking a shower here), and while there was a hint of blood in his piss at the beginning, it quickly disappeared. He felt like he had healed, or at least he was moving around easier, and not spitting up blood. Logan then went and turned on his beaten old air conditioner, but needed to give it a good whack on the side before it started. How could Rags stand to live here? The smell of tacos was about to drive him mental.  
  
Walking out into the bright sunlight, he needed a minute for his eyes to adjust, and understood why sunglasses were a necessity in Southern California. Maybe the pollution concentrated the sunlight, gave it a laser like intensity.  
  
He went back to his motel room, wondering if he'd see Dru again. If she was working for the Dragons, it was a given, so he should be ready for her next time. She wasn't the only one who could use insanity as an effective defense.  
  
He got his air conditioner going - it was just as bad as Rags', it seemed - and took a cool shower, wondering about his latest "memory". Honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know anymore. He was starting to get a very bad feeling, especially about that government guy. His instinct was telling him he was better off not knowing, and how could he doubt it? Sometimes it was all he had.  
  
But how did you tell the Powers That Be to stop? If they were at all like Bob, they didn't take orders or requests, they simply did what they wanted.  
  
He suddenly realized, after the shower, that he had no more spare clothes to change into. So he got back into his torn and bloody clothes, and hit the nearest clothing store. He got weird looks for wearing his leather jacket zipped up in this weather, but it was better than letting everyone see how torn up and blood spattered his shirt was. As for the jeans … well, he could always claim to be a musician. It was L.A. - they were a dime a dozen.  
  
After being briefly appalled at clothing prices - this wasn't even an upscale boutique! - he bought three pairs of jeans (well, his track record indicated he needed spares), a pack of pre-packaged t-shirts and tank tops. (He already knew that his history indicated he needed lots of shirts; he was always losing his shirts. Shit, sometimes he wondered why he even bothered to wear one.) At the last minute, he threw in a pair of mirrored sunglasses.  
  
Returning to his room, he quickly changed, choosing an olive green tank top since it was already about a hundred out there, donned his sunglasses, and set out on the motorcycle he'd got from Argenis. With Chin dead, he was forced to go to plan B - the hard way. Well, not for him, but surely for the others.  
  
L.A.'s Chinatown - famous movie setting that it was - only appeared different from New York City's Chinatown in that there was a little more room between buildings. It wasn't precisely sprawling by anyone's interpretation, but the width of the buildings and the alleys between them gave you a sense of breathing room that New York City just couldn't have, not with its population density. Also, you got to see more of the sky, as smoggy as it often was. As much as he liked big cities - ironically, it was so easy to become lost in a crowd, to be among a thousand people and never noticed - he did miss the open sky in more remote places, and certainly the smell of a forest was always more inherently appealing (even rife with skunks) than hundreds and hundreds of people crammed together, regardless of their personal hygiene.  
  
He traveled the back alleys, looking for the places where tourists never went and were never welcomed, and it was easily to visually tell what part of town that was, as it wasn't as quaintly picturesque as the rest of it, nor were their any signs in English. Also, it didn't look as clean, overall; this was the seedy side of Chinatown, the dangerous part.  
  
Chinatown itself was a misnomer. It was actually "Asiantown", as everybody from the Near East seemed represented here: the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Thais, Taiwanese, Malaysians, Philippines. Even the Pakistanis and Indians had made inroads here. But Chinatown was a much catchier name, and of course more famous now.  
  
He parked his bike in a narrow alley, hiding it behind a dumpster, and walked towards a bar so low profile that it had nothing but a hand drawn sign in the window announcing it as a bar - and in Mandarin only. Two different ways to avoid the gaijin. Well, usually.  
  
He pushed open the peeling wooden door, and walked into a smoke filled, dimly lit dive, where all the neon signs were in ideograms, not English. There were a handful of men - they were all men - sitting at rickety tables scattered around the bars, slumping in booths. For some reason, the actual bar itself was devoid of people filling the stools.  
  
Everybody glanced at him, but as soon as they saw he was a white guy, glances turned to hostile or stunned stares. As he walked past, two guys who looked like professional drinkers said, in Mandarin, "Stupid fucking tourists."  
  
"I wonder if he has any money."  
  
Logan looked at them, taking off his sunglasses, and replied, in Mandarin, "I'm no stupid tourist, asshole. And yeah, I got money. Think you can take it from me, grandpa?"  
  
Their look of shock made him smile. He swaggered over to the bar like he was the toughest guy in the joint, like he could take anyone if they wanted to start trouble. It helped a lot that he was, and he could.  
  
The bartender was a young Korean guy with a long, pale scar nearly bisecting his right cheek. Despite his racial background, he spoke perfect Mandarin. "What the hell do you want?" He snapped.  
  
Logan chuckled to himself as he slid onto a stool, and, glancing at the list of available beers - all Asian, most unheard of in this country - asked, "Give me a Sun Lik, and talk nicer to a customer." He dug a twenty out of his pants pocket and tossed it on the ash smeared bar.  
  
The kid looked warily between him and the twenty, and Logan found himself mentally counting all the acne scars on his face. He began to wonder if he connected the dots, he'd make a picture of Abraham Lincoln. Seriously, it almost looked like he could. Finally, greed won out, and he took the bill before retreating farther down the bar and retrieving a bottle of Sun Lik beer from a cooler. If someone could be said to pop a bottle cap viciously, he did, and slid it down the bar. Logan caught it easily, and with two gulps swallowed half the bottle. It was way too fucking hot out there.  
  
When the kid came back with his change, he said, "Your kind isn't welcome here."  
  
Logan raised an eyebrow at that, and found it impossible not to smile. "My kind? Oh, you mean the whole white thing? Accident of birth; can't be helped." It was funny to be resented for that, when the guy could resent him for being a mutant. But he didn't know he was, so it was all kind of funny.  
  
"I really think you should have your beer and go." The kid was starting to sweat. Logan's incessant, amused smile was starting to make him nervous, and his dark eyes kept flicking over him, sizing him up, trying to judge if was carrying a weapon (he was, but he'd never see it), and if he got his biceps from lifting weights or actually beating the snot out of people on a regular basis.  
  
"Not until I know where the action is. Where's the game?"  
  
He pulled out a dirty rag and pretended to wipe down the bar, the usual action of a bartender who wanted to ignore someone. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"Sure you do. How does Chinatown stay so financially solvent? Selling tea? There's always a game on somewhere, and I want in."  
  
The bartender continued wiping down an imaginary spot, ignoring an actual drink ring, and shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about."  
  
He took another swig of his beer, then said, "Does the name Yashida help?"  
  
It was like a cone of silence had slammed down inside the bar. The other men hadn't even been making that much noise, so it was that much more amazing. The kid stiffened as if he'd just gotten a cattle prod in the ass, and his head snapped around so fast Logan was almost startled. "Are you a cop?" He hissed. "We don't like any fucking white boy cops coming down here -"  
  
"Do I look like a fucking cop to you?" He shot back angrily. "I'm no goddamn cop. What I am is someone looking to get back in the game - in more ways than one." He was talking about gambling, but he was also talking about something else, and he hoped the kid was finally getting it.  
  
He must have, because even though he was appraising him with a hard stare, he whispered, "Are you trying to tell me you were in with them?"  
  
"I worked for the Yashidas," he agreed. "And I was no fucking pool boy. I've been out for a while, but now I want back in." This, of course, left out several key details, and glossed over all the others, but it was good enough. Of course, the dates wouldn't precisely match, but he was hoping that some distant Yashidas must have survived, and didn't change their name, but continued to work in the Japanese mafia in spite of the new stigma slapped on their surname.  
  
The kid actually took a step back, anger draining away to doubt, then shock. The Yakuza had a lot of people in their organization, and while most of them were Japanese, not all were. And with this whole Three Dragons thing, they even crossed the species barrier.  
  
Someone got up from the back of the bar and then left. The guy was trying to be casual, but Logan smelled the surge of adrenaline from him. He would bet solid money he was going to report this crazy gaijin throwing around the Yashida name in a bar, and he was glad. Why else was he here?  
  
"You … uh, you worked for Mr. Yashida?" The bartender stammered.  
  
Mr. Yashida? Mariko's father, Uncle …. Or someone else entirely? He felt a slight twinge in his stomach as he realized there might be a Yashida highly placed in the Yakuza right this second. Oh, what kind of bitter, bite you on the ass irony would that be if true? Even if he wasn't related to the Yashidas he couldn't help but think of as "his", it would still be kind of freaky. He gulped down the rest of his beer, and slammed the empty bottle down on the bar. The bartender jumped slightly at the noise. "What, you think I'm a tourist? Are you gonna tell me where there's a game going or not?"  
  
He seemed like he wanted to say no, but just couldn't dare. If he was Yakuza, former or current, that was just trouble no one needed. "Down at Matsuda's, about a mile from here," he admitted reluctantly. "In the back. But I didn't tell you."  
  
"Of course you didn't." He got up to go, and he could feel the general relief in the room. They all wanted him gone as of yesterday.  
  
"If … if they ask about you, who should I say you are?"  
  
That was a curious way to put it, but he understood the kid was only trying to think of a way to put a name to the gaijin in case this came back to haunt him. A thought that occurred to him almost made him laugh, and it was too good not to share. "Just tell 'em I'm the last samurai, and not that Tom Cruise pussy either. They'll figure it out." He put his sunglasses back on and left the stinking bar, going out into the stinking outside world. At least it was a different kind of stink.  
  
His bike was where he had left it, which he expected, and he took it down to Matsuda's, a little disappointed that he wasn't being followed. Maybe it took them a minute to get their act together.  
  
Matsuda's was a large hotel with an attached restaurant, bar, and public bath, which would probably explain the large crowds to the unknowing eye. Of course it made him wonder how they could successfully hide a casino in it with all the people coming in and out, but it probably wasn't a proper casino by any means. Las Vegas had no reason to be nervous.  
  
The parking lot was too full and too open, so he found another blind alley where he could stash his bike. He'd just gotten it set up behind another dumpster full of fish guts when he got a whiff of something else on the wind, heard footsteps. Finally.  
  
There were four Ressiks, and they didn't attack as one, but split up and swarmed from different places. They came from either side of the mouth of the alley, and the other two jumped down from the roof of the buildings above him - and one of those was shooting on the way down, like a character in a John Woo film.  
  
He didn't wait. He rushed the ones coming at him from the mouth of the alley, popping his claws as he ran, and he reached a big one first, one who pulled a machete and swung it at him like he was a stalk of sugar cane. He sliced through it mid-air, the machete apparently not made of adamantium, and then plunged his claws knuckle deep into the demon's barrel chest.  
  
It wouldn't kill him - he knew that from experience - but he also knew from experience that getting stabbed fucking hurt, even if it wasn't fatal. The bronze scaled, snake like demon gasped, gaping at him in wide eyed shock, as his pal came in from the side. Logan nailed him in the abdomen with a side kick before he yanked his claws out of his friend's chest.  
  
"Stop shooting, asshole," one of them snapped. "You almost hit me with a ricochet!"  
  
The one he stabbed fell away, hitting the wall and grabbing his chest as he slid down it, while the other three swarmed. Logan was roughly certain he'd been shot (perhaps several times), but he couldn't really feel it. He was pumped on adrenaline, and was pretty sure he could rip through a tank if he absolutely had to.  
  
They'd seen the claws, so they ganged up on him, one Ressik grabbing each of his arms (avoiding the claws), and trying to hold them back, while the one with the gun moved in for a point blank shot. He shot him twice as he moved in - he felt the powder burn his eye as one of the shots hit his cheek and bounced off - and he pumped two other shots into his chest as he moved in. "Tough fucker, ain't you?" The gunman sneered. He was a greenish Ressik this time. This was another thing that made sense to him, although he wasn't sure why exactly: different races within demon species. "Will a shot between the eyes finally put you down, dog?"  
  
"No." Since they were holding his arms tight, Logan was able to jump up, and wrap his legs around the Ressik's gun arm, and twist until he heard a sickening crack.  
  
He yelped in pain and dropped the gun as his buddies drabbed Logan out of range and started pummeling him, pounding their fists into his face. Someone broke their knuckles on his cheekbone, and his assailant barked in pain as much as shock. Since they stopped, Logan slammed his foot down on top of the right Ressik's foot, breaking several bones. He screamed, loosening his grip momentarily, and Logan took advantage of that, giving him a sharp elbow in the throat before yanking his arm free and stabbing the Ressik who was still holding on to his left arm straight through the head. He made a painful, wet noise, and fell back, not dead but close enough.  
  
The gunman had picked up his gun in his left, usable hand, and fired another point blank shot at him as Logan lunged for him. Despite being only a couple of feet from each other, he missed; he just wasn't used to shooting from the left, and he had a tremor in his hand that was either fear or pain, or both. Logan didn't wait to find out - he slashed through his neck, and cut his head clean off. It hit the asphalt before his body even buckled.  
  
He knew the Ressik with the broken foot was coming up on him, so he wasn't terribly surprised when a metal pry bar came down hard on the back of his skull. It snapped clean in half, one part flying off and hitting a brick wall with enough force to kick up some dust, and while he was sure it had cut open some skin on his scalp, and left him seeing stars, that was all it did. He turned around snarling.  
  
The Ressik limped back, mouth agape. "Oh fuck, you're all metal."  
  
They didn't know? They thought he just had the claws? Well, you learned something new every day, didn't you? He retracted the claws of his right hand and grabbed him by the throat, bring his left hand claws a hair's breadth from the side of his head. "Listen and listen good," he growled. "Go tell your bosses I couldn't give a fuck what they want to do, and to whom. If they give me one thing, I'll leave them the fuck alone."  
  
His apple sized yellow eyes were bugging out of their sockets, and he strained to sputter, "Wh-what?"  
  
This had just occurred to him on the way over from the bar. It wasn't his original plan exactly, but it was probably better. That's why he worried that Scott was really going to fuck up his "X-Men" team one of these days - a good fighter had to be ready to improvise, use what he had around him. Scott seemed to prefer sticking to a script; rigidity could kill almost as fast as stupidity. "I want Yashida. They give me him, I'll get out of your hair and never bother you again. If they don't cough him up, I will cut through every single fucking one of you to get him, just like I did before. Got that?"  
  
It would track, and sound highly plausible. After all, he had cut through the Japanese underworld once before; what would stop him from doing it again? Certainly not these boneheads. If the guy was highly placed in the Yakuza, there would be chaos - some would want to give him up, and he wouldn't want to go. Best case scenario, the sharks would turn on one another, and tear each other apart. In the ensuing struggle and power vacuum, he could easily take down all the Three Dragons. As the great Alfred Hitchcock termed it, it was a Maguffin, but one that Yashida couldn't afford to ignore.  
  
He wasn't replying fast enough, so Logan shook him, and he sputtered, "Yes, yes, I got it."  
  
"Good." He then slammed his forehead into the Ressik's, and his huge eyes rolled up into the back of his head. When Logan let him go, he dropped like a stone.  
  
The Ressik he'd stabbed through the chest was on his feet now, and had pulled a nine millimeter out of his pocket. Logan just stood there, smiling, waiting for him to shoot. "Come on, you know you want to," he growled, continuing to smirk at him.  
  
For a moment, the Ressik just stared back at him, as if trying to figure out if he was bluffing or not. As soon as he decided he wasn't, the Ressik turned and ran. Smart choice.  
  
Logan rolled his shoulders, trying to work the kinks out (bullet impact did hurt, even if it did nothing else), and retrieved his bike, figuring he was done here - at least for now. Now it was time for the Dragons to really seek him out, make them work for it. Get deeper and deeper in the shit. As soon as they completely tipped their hand, it was all over but the screaming.  
  
It wasn't anything he should feel proud about, but damn it, he felt good.  
  
9  
  
He decided to swing by Rags's place, just to make sure he was okay, and he was. He answered the door with a painful groan, and looked incredibly hung over. "So ya lived?" Rags asked, somewhat factiously.  
  
"Yeah. Did you?"  
  
He continued to groan in pain, and quickly shut the door as soon as he was inside, as if trying to banish all the sunlight in the world. The blinds were firmly shut, and while some light had bled inside, most of it came from the silent television. "Yeah, kinda." He rubbed his crystal eyes, and then said, "Thrakk gotta 'it for ya."  
  
He wasn't sure he'd heard him right. "Huh? What do you mean he got a hit for me?"  
  
"'e found a guy who can 'elp you find Arcanum."  
  
He was honestly surprised. He hadn't expected that to ever pan out. "Seriously? Where?"  
  
"Just a sec." He sat down on his bed, and started going through the pockets of a coat that smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke and vomit. "I'm guessin' you didn't run into Dru again." He jerked his head at his tank top, which was decorated with bullet holes and blood; most of it his, but some of it black Ressik.  
  
"No. I met some of those Ressiks you mentioned the other night. They wanted to have a chat."  
  
"Did you kill 'em all?"  
  
"No, just the one shooting at me. The rest I just scarred for life."  
  
He snorted humorously. "Next time you go up against 'em, invite me. I wanna ringside seat."  
  
"You hate 'em that much?"  
  
"Ressiks are motherfucking bastards, the whole lot of 'em. You know they generally eat a piece of their opponent? It's so they can get some of their strength or essence, or somethin' gross like that. If someone's gonna kick their reptilian asses, I wanna see it. 'ell, if we film it, we could make a lot of scratch."  
  
Now there was an idea. A bizarre, sick idea, but one all the same.  
  
Rags found what he was looking for, and held it out to him, It was a business card, but when he took it, he saw it was actually a hotel's business card - the Beverly Hills Hotel, with a room number scrawled on the back in ballpoint. "'e's only in town for business; supposedly 'e's leaving soon. You should find 'im by the pool. 'e wears flashy clothes and is green. Thrakk said 'e's from Vegas."  
  
"Don't tell me - is he an agent of some sort?"  
  
Rags shrugged. "Don't know."  
  
"Do you have a name for him at least?"  
  
He shook his head. "Thrakk never mentioned it."  
  
Logan sighed, and shoved the card in the back pocket of his jeans. "Guess I'd better get goin' then."  
  
"If you wanna catch 'im, yeah."  
  
"I'm gone. Thanks." At the door, he turned back and asked, "Do the Sisters protect you always?"  
  
Rags glanced up at him curiously, eyes narrowing in equal parts suspicion and pain. "Pretty much, yeah. Why?"  
  
"You might need it, that's all. I'll try not to come by here anymore."  
  
Rags sighed like the world's last martyr, and shook his head. "You're a fuckin' maniac."  
  
"So I've been told," he admitted, venturing out into the bright sunlight once more. He wondered if he should change for this fancy ass guy waiting for him in Beverly Hills, or just let the bullet holes and bloodstains speak for themselves?  
  
Yeah, why not? Might give the upper class a thrill.  
  
Absolutely no one wanted to let him anywhere near the pool - once he was inside the air conditioned, perfumed (!) lobby, they wanted to shoo him out. So he started ranting about how he needed to see his agent now, and he was sorry he didn't have time to get his makeup off, but he'd just gotten off set, and he needed to go back ASAP, and if he was late Mr. Cameron was going to hold them all personally responsible for the delay.  
  
Unbelievable - it worked. They backed off. For as many drawbacks as L.A. obviously had, there were some perks, such as obnoxiousness being completely acceptable if there was the slightest possibility you were "someone". Oh, someone would investigate it, figure out he was a fraud, and kick him out, but he could milk it for all it was worth in the meantime.  
  
Since it was roughly eight million degrees out in the sun (okay, give or take a few million), he didn't expect there to be that many people poolside, so wasn't he surprised. All the chaise lounges and chairs seemed taken with hard bodied men and women of various kinds, wearing little clothing, and he was tempted to go up to a couple of them and ask if they thought their implants might melt in the intense heat, but thought better of it. That was something to do on the way out.  
  
There were some small circular tables scattered around the poolside area, shaded by huge, multicolored parasols, and since he saw no green skin on the semi-nude club, he figured these weren't Thrak's friend. (One guy wore a gold lame Speedo, though - it was flashy, but did it count as clothing? At least he had an idea why they were called "banana hammocks", though.)  
  
He glanced around as he walked through the tables, wishing the reek of chlorine and sunscreen wasn't as bad as it was; it was hard to smell much of anything (the chlorine really knifed through his sinuses), and his eyes were starting to water. It would have been a good place for Dru to attack him again, if it wasn't for all this pesky daylight. And the manager loudly calling someone "a fucking assface fuck" loudly on his cell phone had garlic breath that probably could have dissolved a vampire on contact. (Assuming garlic actually worked on vampires. Did it? Damn, he forgot to ask Angel about that.)  
  
Finally, he caught a glimpse of a bright purple tailored suit, something way to hot and bright for a day or a place like this, but the man was putting away his own cell phone, and was wearing a strangely old fashioned fedora, so he couldn't get a good look at him. He was within six feet of the table when he finally got a whiff of something familiar getting past the chlorine. Logan was so stunned he actually paused. "Lorne?" He asked, surprised.  
  
The man turned sharply, almost as if braced for something bad, but then the green demon lowered his designer sunglasses, and peered up at him with bright red eyes. "Holy hand grenade. Clint Eastwood, what are you doing here?"  
  
He scowled at that, and approached his table. "It's Logan."  
  
"Oh, I know sweetie, it's just that … " he petered off, and then sat forward, whispering, "Is that real blood on your shirt?"  
  
He nodded as he sat down in the lone empty chair at his tiny table. "Yeah. Some Ressiks had a problem with me."  
  
"Ressiks." He shuddered extravagantly. "Land sharks of the demon world. And no fashion sense at all."  
  
"So you're Thrak's friend?"  
  
He took off his sunglasses as he snorted through his nose. He had the dregs of what smelled like a tequila sunrise in a glass near his left elbow. "I wouldn't say friend, per se. It's just if you ever owned a karaoke place, you needed to know who Thrak was."  
  
"To keep him out?"  
  
He tapped his nose. "Give Steve McQueen a Cupie doll. He rarely kills demons with his voice, but still … not a pleasant experience for any being with ears. Thrak said he knew a guy who was looking for Arcanum, a friend of Rags', but he never mentioned you by name. Weird coincidence, huh?"  
  
Logan shrugged. "I'm not sure I believe in coincidences. I prefer the term 'conspiracy'."  
  
Lorne chuckled, and dabbed at the sweat on his brow with a napkin. He wondered why he didn't take off his hat, then he remembered he had horns. Probably not what you wanted people to see, especially poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "You're a macho man after my own heart, sweets. So what is it you want with Arcanum? You know there's some bad mojo around that place, don't you?"  
  
A waiter started to approach, but Lorne shooed him away, which was fair enough. Logan doubted he could get a decent beer here. "Yeah, that's why I want to find it." Lorne's quizzical gaze suddenly became startled, and he didn't know why. "What?"  
  
"Have they picked you?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
Lorne sat back, looking both displeased and frightened. "Sing for me."  
  
"Say what?"  
  
"You want me to take you to Arcanum, sing. Anything, just a line or two, doesn't matter. I just need to know …"  
  
"Know what?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
He glared at him, then picked up his virtually empty rocks glass. "How many of these have you had?"  
  
Lorne crossed his arms over his chest, and settled back in his chair, as if in it for the long haul. "That's my price, Loganberry. You want the info, you have to humor me first."  
  
Loganberry? Oh man, how the hell had he ended up in this town? 


	7. Part 7

"I'm not singing," Logan insisted.

"Then I'm not taking you to Arcanum. No sweat off my schnozz."

He scowled, but Lorne had set his jaw and just stared back at him, willing to be as stubborn as he was. Damn it. "Rags said you were from Vegas. I thought you were from around here."

"Oh, technically I'm not from this dimension at all, but I've recently moved to Vegas. L.A. just has too many bad memories for me, and don't think changing the subject is going to help."

He rubbed his eyes, growling quietly in his throat. He didn't know Lorne that well, but he knew enough about him to realize that he wouldn't have been on Angel's team if he couldn't have held up his end of a skirmish. So what he lacked in obvious physical ability he must have made up for in general, hard hearted stubbornness. Logan knew that that was one of his attributes, and he didn't appreciate the irony. "I am not singing in public. I'm not auditioning for some goddamn reality show."

"Hon, we're in Beverly Hills. You'd have to blare out like a fog horn to even get anyone's attention, and even then, good luck. That's why demons love this place - everyone's so self-absorbed, they never even notice you're green, or made of slime, or a talking kangaroo. Until they get eaten, of course, but then it's too late, and botox won't save you."

He stared at him in disbelief. "You were the comic relief, weren't you?"

"At times. Now come on, quit stalling. The waiter will be over any minute."

"And why am I singing for you again?"

"I'm psychic, I read people, but I can only read them when they sing."

"That's the stupidest power I've ever heard of."

"Then you haven't heard what Ugg demons can do." He folded his green scaled hands neatly on the table, and gave him a slightly impatient look.

"I didn't ask to be read."

"No, but I want to do it for my own well being."

"Why do I doubt that?"

"Because you're a cynic."

Logan smirked at that. "See? Didn't need to read me there."

"Honey, you wear your cynicism like body armor. Even Anna Nicole Smith coulda figured that one out."

"Why don't you just tell me where Arcanum is?"

He shook his head. "Wouldn't help you, and I think you know that. You need a golden ticket to get in, and, sadly, you're looking at him. A ticket that's about to get up and walk."

Logan glanced around nervously, then covered his eyes with his hand. He didn't think he could face anyone while singing. Odd, he could take on army without flinching, but the idea of singing made him want to hide under the table. How stupid was that? He hated himself for being frightened at the prospect, even while resenting Lorne for making him do this. "I hate you," he muttered.

"Well, you'd hardly be the first."

In a voice low enough to qualify as a whisper, he very reluctantly sang the first lyrics that popped into his head. "In her false witness, we hope you're still with us, to see if they float or drown. Our favorite patient, a display of patience -"

"Okay, okay," Lorne said, waving one hand as if in distress, while he pinched the bridge of his nose with his other hand, grimacing as if in great pain. "Christ, Wesley told me you'd been through some nightmarish shit, but I had no idea."

Logan didn't know what to say, but he was glad he didn't have to sing anymore. He glanced around, but he'd kept it low enough that no one else had heard. Or Lorne was right, and no one was inclined to notice.

Lorne seemed to take a couple of deep breaths, as if he was honestly in pain, but Logan wasn't sure why. Was his singing that bad? After a minute of recovering, Lorne said, "That was Nirvana, wasn't it?"

"Umm, yeah. Does that matter?"

"No, it's just that no one's ever sung Nirvana for me before. Weird, isn't it? I don't get too many contemporary hard rock tunes thrown my way. I should have known you'd go for the grunge. You not only have the angst, but the leather and flannel should have been a giveaway."

He scowled at him. "What'd you see?"

Lorne rubbed his red eyes once more, and seemed reluctant to look straight at him. "Lots of thing I wish I didn't. You still have a little Bob in you, don't ya? Boy, his energy stings like no other."

"It's just for telepaths. Bob said he'd take it out before I returned to the mansion for a while, so I wouldn't give Xavier migraines."

"You're not going back for quite a while."

"I know." He then paused and looked at him funny. "How'd you know?"

"Psychic, remember?" He rubbed his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. "Man, I needed several more drinks before I tried to read you."

"Are you happy now?"

"No, but I am satisfied." He sighed heavily. "They haven't picked you yet, at least not exactly. Good for you."

"Who hasn't picked me for what?"

"The Powers."

"I could have told you that."

"Do you really think you would know? They're pretty sneaky nowadays."

He waited for him to tell him his future or something, but he did nothing for many seconds but rub his forehead. Finally, he prompted, "Well?"

Lorne looked up, annoyed. "Well what?"

"My future? What did you see?"

"It doesn't work like that, or at least not always."

"Can you tell me anything? Am I going to bring down the Three Dragons or not?"

He scratched one of his horns, quickly lowering his hat to hide it again. "There's still a couple different ways that can go, but they were definitely not as ready for you as they thought they were. But you're not as ready for them as you think either."

"I already know that," he grumbled, thinking of Dru.

"You have a good voice, you know. Have a bit more confidence, sing from the diaphragm, you'll knock 'em dead. In a non-lethal way. In fact, I'm the silent partner in this nightclub on the Strip in Vegas, and I bet I could whip together a show around you. 'The Singing Mutant'. It would be fabulous. Know any Sinatra?"

Logan glared at him. "No. Now what about Arcanum? What'll happen there?"

He shook his head. "Weren't you paying attention, big guy? That's one of the things that could go either way. Answer unclear - try again later. But I can tell you you're destined to go to Arcanum." He sighed heavily, shoulders sagging as if he was deflating. "And, by extension, so am I. Shit. I never ever wanted to get sucked into the battle of good and evil crap. I'm just not cut out for it. They never warn you that even the good guys have to do bad things sometimes."

Logan studied him curiously, aware he was referring to something specific, something that bothered him so much he could see it on his face. But he wasn't sure if he should ask about it or not, as it didn't look like he even wanted to remember it, not to mention discuss it. "I coulda told you that too," he finally said.

Curiously, Lorne reached across the table and patted his hand. "I know, desperado, and it's appreciated. All this hero stuff needs to be left to you guys, the guys who can stomach it, and live with the occasional bad consequence. "

You guys? Was he referring to him and the X crew, him and Angel, or all of the above? "It's not that we can stomach it, or even live with it, it's just that we find ways to cope. Or not. Sometimes the best you can do is try and forget it."

"I hear that. But it's not as easy as it sounds, is it?"

"Nothing ever is."

"Ah, there's a philosopher buried under all those muscles and facial hair, huh? Not all that surprising really. You've lived enough for a couple lifetimes, haven't you?"

He looked at him askance. "Maybe; I'm not really sure. Can you tell me?"

"Nothing you don't already know, hombre. Why don't you go back to your motel and rest up, and I'll have a few more drinks and pick you up at sundown. We'll hit Arcanum then."

"Why not now?"

"'Cause it uses a dimensional phasing trick during daylight hours. It's only accessible at night. Did you forget you were dealing with bad demons here? Night time is play time."

Logan groaned in disappointment, and scrubbed a hand through his hair. Yeah, demons did love the cover of darkness, didn't they? "Fine. We need back up?"

Lorne stared at him with genuine surprise. "You're not enough?"

He shrugged with his hands. "I guess I am. Just tell me if we go into Arcanum whether we're going to be greeted by the Crazy 88's or not."

"You think you couldn't handle them?"

"No, I could, but I ain't gonna wear good clothes if I'm just gonna get them all bloody."

Lorne smirked and glanced away, catching the waiter's eye and raising his empty glass to signal he needed a refill. "You are the macho man's macho man, Logan. You could make a fortune in this town."

He really didn't know what to say that. He knew Lorne probably meant it as a compliment, but it sounded like an insult.

* * *

10

Gus let him use his back "office", which was basically a storage room where he had a chair and a table for counting money and balancing his ledgers among the crates, as Logan told him it was "police business". It was bullshit, of course, but with the slaughter so fresh, everyone was inclined to believe it.

As soon as he shut the door, Logan wheeled on the sepulchral government man, and snarled, "What the fuck are you doing here? I was given an honorable discharge!"

The man gave him a tiny smile that verged on patronizing. "Are you going to tell me that no strings were pulled there? You wanted - needed - out, and by chance your commander owed you one. You saved his life in Moreuil Wood, didn't you?"

He glared at the wiry man, wanting badly to put his face through the wall, although he didn't really know why. Yes he did - he just wasn't cut out for taking orders. Some people were made to lead, others made to follows, and others still made to be left alone. "I saved a lot of people in Moreuil Wood; we all did. That was the job."

"Quite a job it was too," he agreed, oozing patronization. He took off his glasses and started cleaning the lenses on the hem of his shirt. "Superior German forces, backed up by machine gun fire, and still your unit won. The Regiment's finest day. Tell me, did you change your last name to Woods in honor of that? You sound like a place - Logan Woods. In fact, I believe I have heard of at least one place by that name ... "

"Tell me what the hell you want and get out."

That made the oily man smirk as he carefully put back on his eyeglasses. "That's what your record says, you know. It says you are remarkably calm and able most of the time, but you do have an "explosive" temper. In fact, you're considered "highly emotional" - did you know that? That was why it was so easy to believe a man who had actually refused the Victoria Cross had just disappeared off the face of the earth and discarded his name. You always were a queer duck, weren't you?"

He didn't want to pace, didn't want to show any sign of weakness, so he simply glared at him, crossing his arms over his chest. "What do you want?"

"Persistent, single minded, stubborn - that too was in your file. You were extremely hard to track down. Luckily, we had some contacts in the RCMP."

"Who's "we" exactly?"

The man gave him that fragment of a smile once more, one that oozed with smugness and condescension. "You've never heard of us. We're a new government agency, and we've been looking for people with ... unique talents. We believe you would make a valuable asset."

He sighed and shook his head. "No. Go away."

"Hear me out."

"No. I'm done with that military regimental shit. I only got involved with them in the first place because they needed a translator. I'm not a military kind of person, all right? I like peace, quiet, and privacy. I'm happy here, and I fulfilled my end of the bargain. You guys hold yours."

"We're not military per se. We are an ... autonomous group, and we could give you what you seek, Mister ... Woods. It's odd; I want to call you by your military name, Jones."

"You can't give me what I seek, trust me. Now go."

But the guy wasn't taking the hint. He looked as fixed in his spot as Logan was. "How did you acquire your lingual fluency, Mr. Woods?"

He couldn't believe he was going to be grilled about this again. "I've already explained this -"

Now it was the G-man's turn to interrupt him. "Oh yes, the world travel, the education that you can't verify due to several unfortunate incidents, the identity you can't verify for similar reasons. Believe it or not, the government isn't quite as stupid as you think. We know the birth certificate that you - Logan Jones - turned over was a forgery. A very well done forgery, but one all the same. Still, by the time it was done, you were already a hero, and out of the Regiment, and the friends you had made there were not inclined to pursue the matter. But you caught the eye of some people who had some honest curiosity about you."

"I am not a hero," he insisted, feeling his face flush. He didn't want to get mad, get "emotional", but god it was hard not to with this heavily starched idiot. "And I'm sorry my birth certificate was a fake, but it was real as far as I knew. It ain't easy being the only survivor of a family that didn't bother to leave me all the proper documents, okay?"

"A story guaranteed to elicit sympathy. You do know the right things to say, don't you? The tests proved you were far more intelligent than anyone had ever guessed, which is why it's so curious you seem attracted to places such as these."

"What tests? And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The G-man held his arms out wide, gesturing to the roof hewn wooden floor, the low ceiling, the kegs and sacks of supplies surrounding them in the cool, cramped room. "Does this hamlet even have regular electricity, Mr. Woods? A man with your knowledge and abilities could certainly afford a better station in life. It seems rather curious when you pervasively do the opposite. It leads one to believe that you have something to hide."

He couldn't quite suppress a sneer. "It always comes down to class, doesn't it? 'One' would be wrong, thinking that if you're not a snob, you have something to hide. Maybe it doesn't appeal to you, but I prefer living closer to nature. "

His pale eyes glittered with amusement. "Is that what you call it? Is that why a man of your age looks so unbelievably young?"

Oh shit. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"According to your forged birth certificate, you'd be almost fifty, wouldn't you?"

"Tell me what the hell you're after, and go back to Red River."

The man gave him that superior smile once more, seemingly relishing the fact that he caught him in a lie he couldn't quite squirm out of. "The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, Mr. Woods. Unusual things - people - seem to be occurring at a rapid rate, and not all of them are as benign as we would hope. We foresee problems, problems that will take special handling. We need special people, intelligent people with unique talents and insights, and you are at the top of our list."

"I don't have any talents."

"Ah, but you do. Your gift with languages, for one. For another, you seem to be especially gifted in physical combat for a man who doesn't like to fight, and we know you're quite intelligent, despite the façade you prefer."

He scowled at him. "The façade you prefer? What the hell do you mean by that?"

"You were in the Regiment, and served admirably. You wouldn't even need much in the way of training. And we can give you something you can't quite achieve on your own - completely anonymity. You can live far from the madding crowd, with any identity you choose - or not identity, if you wish. Whatever records do exist of you, we can make them disappear. You will not exist, save for when you wish to."

"For what price?"

"Simply that when we need you, you are there."

"Need me for what?"

"Whatever the mission - or your country - requires. It will probably be more of an intelligence variety as opposed to military or policing, which we think you will find more pleasing. "

"I think I will find it pleasing if you got your smug face out of here. I have said no and I mean no, and I'm not changing my mind. Now get."

He gave him a cold and oily smile that almost gave him a chill. "Think about it, Mr. Woods. I'll be in Red River for the next week. Please stop by if you change your mind. Ask for Malloy. Good day." Finally he turned and left the stuffy office, and Logan let out a deep sigh, desperate to punch something. He kicked a near by crate, checking his strength somewhat so he didn't shatter it. He still accidentally put a hole in it.

Goddamn it, what did these people want from him? Now he knew it was a mistake to reveal himself to these people, but at the time he just wanted to help. They needed translators, and he erroneously volunteered to help. They sent him to Siberia, they sent him to France, and he thought he was careful; he made sure he wasn't too good, or at least tried very hard not to seem that good. It probably didn't work as well as he'd hope. Did anything ever?

He could hear people still milling about outside, peppering "Malloy" outside with questions about the "bear", and he wisely declined to answer them. Logan was too angry to go out and face them, so he went out the back door, which was an overgrown expanse where Gus had a tendency to pitch stuff he didn't need. It also led to the paddock where the Hellers kept their horses.

He saw two horses out in their pasture at the moment, a roan he knew was a mare called "Millie" (this was some kind of family in-joke; he assumed she was named for a hated relative), and a gelding simply called 'Tex'. Tex was old and kind of skittish, so that left Millie as his choice. He knew where the Hellers kept their saddles and tack - there was precious little he didn't know in an outpost this small - and easily hopped the low, split rail fence to retrieve them from the barn. Since he was sure he'd be seen leaving, they would know he'd taken her, but would also understand - hopefully - that he was just borrowing her.

The smell of hay and horseshit made him sneeze, startling Tex as he came out with the saddle, saddle blanket, and bridle. But Millie lingered by, cropping the stubby grass and barely flicking an ear at him as he saddled her up.

He should have faked his death. He did that once - why couldn't he do it again? Fake it and disappear, maybe go back to India or something. But if these government people, whoever they were, figured he faked it once, they would probably know he had done it again. Besides, he actually kind of liked this place, and he wasn't going to be chased out by the likes of them. They weren't blackmailing him ... yet. But it would probably come down to that, if they actually wanted him that bad.

Part of him was angry he had to deal with them, and another part was angry that he had to hide what he could do, what he was. And what was he anyways? Did they know? He seemed to be very oblique - special, unique. How much did they know? Were they simply guessing, just because he hadn't aged? But the implication that there were others like him - were there? Odds were simply too great, there must have been, but why had he never met any? Or were they too hiding like he did, pretending to be something they weren't out of fear of what would happen if they revealed themselves? Part of him was tempted to take the offer just to see if there was, to see if they were being truthful about that.

No, he couldn't afford to trust them. Governments had a tendency to chew people up and spit them out; hell, most organizations did. It was the nature of the beast. But what if there was ..?

"Humans are pretty stupid, aren't they Millie?" He asked the horse, grabbing the saddle horn and pulling himself up on her back. She snorted as if in agreement, and he thought that was pretty funny.

How stupid was he willing to be? He figured he'd know for sure after a visit to Camp Spencer.

* * *

When he woke up, the first thing that crossed his mind was, _'I can ride a horse?' _He had no idea he could do that. But what was real disturbing was the idea he was in ... World War One, wasn't it? Yep, that had to be it. Fucking frightening. Had he been fighting stupid battles all his life? (What did they want to give him the Victoria Cross for?)

The most disturbing thing of all was the government guy's offer. Make him disappear, not officially exist? That's what happened, wasn't it? How could he have ever taken them up on their offer? If he did, he was a moron, and he deserved what happened to him.

Could that be it? Did he actually sign up with them, the Organization in its embryonic form? Was he a willing victim? Was Stryker right?

No, he couldn't believe that. He couldn't have joined with them - something must have happened, something else. Maybe they did blackmail him or something. And he did leave - he knew he left, probably more than once. He still had vague, fleeting memories of being attacked in a bar parking lot by guys with paralyzers ... but when? Why couldn't the Powers let him remember that?

Actually, come to think of it, he didn't want to remember any more. They could keep it to themselves.

Logan had to peel the bed sheet off of him, as his air conditioner, which still rattled like it was in pre-launch sequence, was pumping out warm air. He went and took a cool bath, figuring a shower wasn't enough, but it only worked while he was in the tub; when he got out, he felt sweaty and sticky again. God, Southern Californian summers were a little slice of hell, weren't they?

By the time he got dressed and out of the stifling motel room, he figured he'd walk across the street and get a beer. He did, and sat in the shade, waiting for Lorne to show up.

The sky had cycled from dark, blood smeared orange to something more closely approximating night by the time an old model Pontiac painted a really unfortunate shade of teal screamed into the lot, nearly crashing into a parked truck before screeching to a halt about fifteen feet away. The back door popped open, and Lorne leaned out, beckoning him over. "C'mon, tough guy, we got an evil Mickey Mouse Club to crash." He had changed into a more "casual" suit that almost matched the color of the car, and held a brightly green colored drink in his other hand. From here, he could smell the Midori, vodka, and god knew what else.

"What the hell is that?" He snapped, as Lorne scooted over to the other end of the leather seat.

"Electric Lizard. It tastes as bad as it sounds, but it hits you right between the eyes, and is more portable than a Hurricane. Want some?"

"No. Are you drunk?"

"Oh honey, I wish I was. I'm barely buzzed. Nowadays I need to get good and lubed before I can even think about doing crap like this." He rapped the clear plastic window separating the front seat from the back, and said, "Petal to the metal, Thrakkypoo."

Logan did a slight double take as he realized he saw no one in the driver's seat, and then he did. Holy shit, Thrak was poured behind the wheel, a pile of clear slime with three drippy tentacles at ten, two, and four o'clock on the steering wheel. "Thrak is driving?!" He exclaimed in horror. "He doesn't have eyes!"

"Yes he does," Lorne said, as the car lurched away from the parking lot. "They're just not like ours. He couldn't make his living as a taxi driver if he couldn't see."

Logan stared at him as Thrak surged into traffic at inadvisable speed, and he wondered if he was still asleep and having a new kind of nightmare. "You're shitting me."

"No, honey, he is! How do you think he makes his money? Demons need to go places too."

"You're telling me there's a demon taxi service?"

"There's a demon almost everything. I thought you knew that."

People honked as Thrak made illegal passes and cut into lanes with inches to spare, and he asked, "How can he reach the pedals? He doesn't have legs."

"Well, he ... improvises."

"How?"

"Do you really want to know?"

He considered that as more people honked behind them, and someone screamed a rather choice Mexican obscenity. Logan rubbed his eyes, which felt like they were drying out due to vodka and demon fumes, and muttered, "My kingdom for a horse."

"What?"

"Nothing," he sighed, deciding he wasn't going to look out the windows unless he absolutely had to. "So where are we going?"

"Just North of Rodeo. Oh, hey, while I remember, it's in a place called Mirror Lake."

"Arcanum?"

"No, the base you're going to hit. It's a place called Mirror Lake in North Dakota." Lorne gulped down the rest of his drink, then added, "I caught a glimpse of that, but I kinda needed to process it, get every vision in its right ... order, I guess. A lot of what I read about you threw me for a loop. I was more rattled than Courtney Love after a ride on a warp speed Tilt-A-Whirl."

Logan stared at him, grabbing on to the door handle to hang on as Thrak took a wild, hard turn around a corner, leaving even more Californians honking in their wake. "You - you saw that?" Did he even need to have the phone examined any more? "The Organization base is in North Dakota?"

Lorne nodded, grimacing as if the thought was unpleasant. "Well, if you were gonna hide something, wouldn't you put it in North Dakota? Nobody goes there. It's like the state version of Euro-Disney."

"How did it go?"

"How did what go?"

"The - the raid, the hit on the base."

"Oh. I didn't really see that. I just got the place name."

The car came to a halt so abrupt and screeching both he and Lorne almost went head first through the plastic barrier. After being thrown back into the seat, Lorne glanced out the passenger window, and said, "Hey, we're here. Ready to kick some bad mama-jama ass?" He didn't wait for an answer, he simply opened his door and stepped out.

Logan sighed once more, and opened his door. Time to face the music, whatever it was. It had to be better than Thrak's driving.


	8. Part 8

As soon as Logan got out of cab, he looked around and wondered how far they were from Bob's L.A. abode. They seemed to be in some industrial district, or at least some part of town that kind of looked like it. It seemed like it was made of nothing but parking lots and aggressively bleak buildings, all square, squat, and rectangular, with edges sharp enough to cut. There were streetlights, but unevenly spaced, as if several had been removed by extremely strong vandals. It was dingy and poorly lit, and he wondered if he'd wandered into a Goth video shoot.  
  
But the creepiest thing of all was there was no traffic. None, on any of the cracked asphalt streets wending their way through the dark maze of desolate buildings. He could hear traffic noise, though, some of it quite close, the repetitive thud of rap music bass lines vibrating into the night. But nowhere near here, an impossibility in Los Angeles.  
  
Hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he rapidly scanned the area all around them, peering into the deep well of shadows that seemed to cloak every building, and his skin just wanted to crawl off. "We're being watched," he growled, looking around for the culprit.  
  
Lorne stopped in the middle of the empty street, and held up his hands as if showing off the neighborhood. "Of course we're being watched. You've heard of the bad part of town? Well, this is the worst part - welcome to it."  
  
He looked around, waiting for something to lunge. He smelled a lot of things, but they were all strange and all mixed together, like something was leaving down misleading scent trails on purpose. His skin continued to prickle, but he couldn't pinpoint a reason why, or even a direction. Shadows moved out of the corners of his eyes, but when he focused on them, they went still.  
  
"This is a place of wraiths," Lorne told him, waiting for him to catch up. "Nasty buggers, but they can't really hurt you. Well, much. Mainly they're just here to frighten the knickers off anyone who just wanders by."  
  
"I thought ghosts couldn't really interact with people."  
  
Lorne rolled his red eyes like a teenage girl. "Not ghosts, studly, wraiths."  
  
He decided to ignore the "studly" nickname. Why was he coming up with a new silly nickname for him every five minutes? "What's the difference?"  
  
"Ghosts are dead people, who for one reason or another are stuck here. Wraiths are quasi-intangible demons who can't inhabit Humans, but can't do much about their semi-phased state either. They're kinda like string cheese - neither useful or edible. So they do a lot of low level security work, mainly of the scaring Humans variety, 'cause demons just ain't scared of them."  
  
"Ah." He knew he was never going to get a complete hang of things like this - every time he turned around, it seemed like there was a demon species he just didn't know, but then again, they did seem to have one for everything. Demons just covered the evolutionary map, like those with most players on the board would win. Maybe they were right.  
  
Lorne led him to a square, squat building behind other square, squat buildings, only this one was surrounded by a high chain link fence, topped with loops of razor wire. There were condemned signs threaded through the fence, as well as biohazard warnings, which he had seen before. Demons had figured out radiation and toxic waste symbols were deeply frightening to the average Human, and used them as often as possible. Logan knew there was something wrong about it - it smelled wrong, it felt wrong, and his skin was starting to itch.  
  
Lorne grabbed his arm, and pulled him towards the fence. "This'll probably tingle. Don't fight it."  
  
"Fight what?" He asked, but too late, as Lorne pulled him to the fence - and right through it.  
  
The fence seemed to wink out of existence, replaced by nothing but a thick blackness that felt like it was trying to physically push him back out. Lorne kept pulling him forward against it, and as much as he wanted to pop his claws and cut through the mess, he didn't, figuring this was what Lorne was talking about not fighting.  
  
Finally he was pulled out to the other side, which was just a parking lot, before a building that was square and angular, but not at all like the one they'd seen before. For one thing, it looked far less run down, and was painted a subtle, shimmering silver. It smelled different too, a cacophony of alien and sharp scents that made him shake his head. "What's that?"  
  
Lorne thought he meant the building, because he said, "Arcanum, in the … well, drywall? What is that stuff? Anyhoo, here we are, big bad central. You ready?"  
  
Logan looked over his shoulder, where the tattered fence illusion was back in place. "That's not a normal glamour, is it?"  
  
"It's not a glamour at all, honey. It's a cloaking spell that can only be penetrated by certain beings. Generally, only those from another dimension."  
  
"Aren't all demons technically from another dimension?"  
  
"Well … yes, but this spell is specifically for those not yet nationalized. Meaning those of us who haven't hung around this plane for the past fifteen years or so."  
  
He scratched the back of his neck, which still felt unbearably itchy. "So the only demons in there are recently arrived from somewhere else?"  
  
"Yes. And their friends or snacks."  
  
"Snacks?"  
  
"Oh, don't worry Eddie Scissorhands, I'm sure you're too tough to eat. Like beef jerky lost under the radiator for three years."  
  
He arched an eyebrow and glared at him, not sure where he could even begin to complain. "Are you done?"  
  
Lorne gave him a drunken half-smile. "For now, yeah. C'mon, we don't wanna be late for the party."  
  
"What, are we the appetizers?"  
  
"No, probably more like main entrée."  
  
"What connection would demons from another dimension have to anodyne?" He muttered to himself.  
  
"Huh, sweetie? Didn't catch that."  
  
"Nothing, just talking to myself." Sweetie? Oh, whatever.  
  
Lorne held open the door, letting Logan take the lead as they went inside. He didn't pop his claws, but he remained very alert, waiting for the first sign or scent of trouble.  
  
He thought he wasn't expecting anything, but obviously he was. He was expecting a Human like bar with loud music and bad lighting, but he felt like he'd walked into the wrong place. The ceiling was impossibly high for the warehouse outside, and it was brightly lit with soft golden light from an unclear source. Diaphanous drapes of cloth hung from the mammoth ceiling, cutting the cavernous expanse into sections through which you could see shadows of beings like they were projections on movie screens. Large gem colored floor pillows were heaped up in many spots, and brightly colored Oriental rugs livened up the poured concrete floor, while fragrant smoke like the seashore almost obscured the alien reek of many demons. It seemed like he had entered some kind of palace harem room, a decadent place with hookahs and eunuchs guarding scantily dressed women. There was music playing, but so faintly even his hearing had a hard time picking it up. Sounded like Modest Mouse, not the Goth or otherwise raucous music he would have expected from the demon contingent. But then again, hadn't it already been established he listened to louder music than most of them, and Bob topped them all?  
  
There was something like a bar on the far left, a highly polished arc of blond wood, and he passed through soft veils of ochre and violet, which had a scent somewhere between fabric softener and embalming fluid.  
  
The few demons he had seen had not even looked in his direction, and he wondered if he had entered some kind of high class demon shooting gallery, where they were all so stoned they couldn't even muster up a knee jerk blood lust. He had been worried why?  
  
When he passed through the final drape of azure, he saw why.  
  
There were a couple of very Human looking demons standing at the bar, even though there was no bartender in sight, and one looked familiar. He saw the body first, slender and almost frail, clad in a crimson velvet dress with a bodice that looked like a corset, baring arms and a hint of demur cleavage, her skin as white as snow. Long chestnut hair was held back with an intricate knot that only kept her hair spilling down her back as opposed to covering her face.  
  
She looked at him and gave him a predatory smile, all pale blue far away eyes and blood red lips. "See, I told you he'd come," Dru said to her companion.  
  
Her companion was a towering woman, six foot in fuck me heels, a would be starlet judging by her dyed blonde hair, fake bake tan, a custom sculpted nose, and saline implants that gave her not so much as large breasts as potential body armor. The woman wore a paisley halter top and a black leather mini-skirt, showing off well toned legs and arms. Her face was unremarkable - it was her body that was the selling point - but her eyes seemed to glow a disturbing pink, and she smelled ever so faintly of something not unlike anodyne. "Oh good. Heroes are so tasty."  
  
She stared at him, and before he could do anything, he realized the choice had been taken from him - he couldn't move at all. He was rooted to the spot, and could hardly breathe. He couldn't even see if Lorne was here yet. (Did he even come in?)  
  
The blonde started sauntering towards him, as Dru remained where she was, tittering behind her hand like a shy little girl. "Y'know, big shot, you shoulda done the math," the blonde chided. "Human as hero just doesn't work. Not against us. What the hell were you thinking? Oh, wait, you weren't thinking, were you?"  
  
What the hell was it, telekinesis? He couldn't even look away. He couldn't fight against it, so he had nothing to lose when he thought about the blue, Bob's energy in his mind, dredging it up with a thought.  
  
It was the right move. He felt the tension on him lessen, and she stopped moving towards him, pink eyes widening in shock. "What the fuck ..? Vampire, he ain't normal!"  
  
"Ooh, he has shiny blue bits," Dru cooed, not copping to the error - or doing so in a strangely governmental,, backwards way. "Little pieces of Bob. It tastes like sun on stone."  
  
Blondie snapped her head around to shoot Dru a nasty look. "What the fuck kinda drugs are you on, sister?"  
  
"None," Logan gritted, finally able to talk. As blue filled his bloodstream, her power was ebbing away. "She's a loon. You never figured that out?"  
  
Dru waved a finger at him in a scolding manner. "Now now, little messenger. I'm no bird."  
  
The blonde turned away from Dru, shaking her head dismally. "She's got rocks in her head. Stupid vampires! I should never trust them."  
  
"No, you shouldn't," Logan agreed, and then moved. He grabbed Blondie by the throat with one hand and quickly slammed her back against the bar, bending her back at a painful angle (well, for a Human body), and then popped the claws on her other hand, holding it level with her eyes. It stopped one inch away - and she probably couldn't guess that was exactly how much claw length he still held within his knuckles. "Now, what's your connection to anodyne? Tell me, or we see if you can live without a head."  
  
"Oh shit," she breathed, staring at his claws. "You're one of Kriedler's?"  
  
"Hey, I -" Lorne began, then stopped. "Oh, see you're busy."  
  
"I am not one of Kriedler's," he growled. "Now what the hell are you?"  
  
"I believe she 's a lamia," Lorne contributed helpfully. "Right?"  
  
The blonde's pink eyes narrowed to slits. "What of it, lizard face?"  
  
He had to think about that for a moment. The name was kind of familiar, obviously mythological. "Lamia? Isn't that a kind of vampire?"  
  
"We are not vampires!" She snapped angrily. "Those blood sucking idiots …"  
  
Dru continued to titter. And while he kept an eye on her, she seemed oddly content to watch.  
  
"Well, mythology lumps 'em in with vampires, but that's not quite right. They are parasitic demons, tho -"  
  
"Fuck you, horn head!" Blondie shouted, trying to lunge at him. But Logan held her fast, and lowered his claws even more.  
  
"You can lose an eye first," Logan snarled at her, then barked at Lorne, "If they don't drink blood, what do they do?"  
  
"Eat souls. Sometimes they take residence in the body of the person they snuffed, but other times they just eat the soul and move on."  
  
That sounded both creepy and significant. "What happens to the bodies after they eat the souls?"  
  
He shrugged with his hands. "Damned if I know, stud muffin."  
  
Logan shook Blondie by the throat. "What happens?! Do they shrivel up like you sucked all the water out of 'em?"  
  
"Kinda - it ain't like you guys are anything but rotten fruit anyways."  
  
So there was his answer: anodyne wasn't really killing everybody, it was the lamias. But that still didn't make complete sense. "What's the connection to anodyne? Are you making this shit?"  
  
"Anodyne?" Lorne asked. "What's that?"  
  
"It sings to them," Dru suddenly exclaimed. She twirled away from the bar, holding her hands up like she was about to snap together a set of castanets. "It's the key that opens the door, the beacon that draws them near, the fire that tempts the moths."  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her, but Dru hardly noticed or cared. "Can you break that down into English?"  
  
"The key that opens the door?" Lorne repeated curiously. "Huh. Do you mean it's the elixir?"  
  
"Fine, you tell me," he snapped. "Somebody goddamn tell me!"  
  
"'The lamias got their rosy pink butts booted out of this dimension a long time ago, by other demons who didn't like them bogarting the Humans and leaving sloppy seconds behind. The only way they could get back was through someone on this side helping them out. There was a rumor that there was some kinda elixir, using their blood, that would open a gateway, but I have no idea how that would work."  
  
Logan tightened his grip, and asked Blondie, "Is that true?"  
  
"What if it is, fuzzball?"  
  
Dru spun to the side, giggling, and said, "Uh oh."  
  
A nearby curtain of lime green was pulled back, and three other pink eyed lamia infested Humans appeared. One was maybe six foot six and built like a bouncer, a black man with a gleaming bald scalp and a nose ring, while the one standing beside him was a slightly overweight Goth girl with spiky black hair and black lined eyes, wearing all black and a long Keanu Reeves Matrix style coat, which was insanely inappropriate for the weather; and the third looked like one of those suburban white boy "gangsta" wannabes, with baggy pants, a wife beater tank top, and a backwards turned baseball cap. He wondered if he could hurt him by pointing out he was passé and so yesterday. "I'd let her go if I were you, Human," Nose Ring growled.  
  
He took them all in, wondering how they were supposed to be a threat. If soul sucking was all they had on the table, Bob's power seemed to counteract it (maybe that's why the gateway wasn't opened in him when Marcus gave it to him - or however the hell that worked). He sneered at them, but hauled Blondie off the bar by her throat and tossed her over to her friends. She collided with Big Pants, but somehow neither fell down. "Take her. But do you really wanna dance with me, demon?"  
  
"There's something wrong with him," Blondie gasped, straightening up. "He's harboring something pretty powerful."  
  
"It's blue fire from the heavens," Dru chimed in, making odd movements with her hands; they fluttered like restless birds. "Well, one of them, at any rate."  
  
"And this one's a nut job," she said, pointing at Dru. Dru didn't notice, and no one else cared.  
  
Another demon joined them, but this one looked like Lorne - if he had gained about a foot of height and a hundred and fifty extra pounds. He also wore a black muscle shirt and blue jeans, an oddly subdued outfit that suggested that they couldn't be related, even though they kind of looked it.  
  
"Holy crap," Lorne exclaimed. "Mwerrokkendahl?"  
  
"What's it to you, traitor?" He snarled, in a voice equal parts cheese grater and gravel.  
  
"Old friend?" Logan guessed.  
  
Lorne looked oddly pale, his eyes darting around as if looking around for an exit. "Uh, yeah, something like that. Listen, I think I parked the car in a tow away zone. I'd better go check."  
  
"We didn't have a car."  
  
"I'll go steal one," he said, backing away.  
  
"Coward," Mwerrokkendahl spat.  
  
"I'm a lover, not a fighter," Lorne replied with wounded dignity, then turned and ran.  
  
Logan really didn't care, as he hadn't expected Lorne to help out in the fight. He wasn't one hundred percent certain what position he'd held on Angel's team, but he'd pretty much ruled out "muscle". He popped the claws on his other hand, and said, "I could walk away. You sure you want to do this?"  
  
Mwer- whatever stepped forward, and held out his arms. Something black and pointed grew out from under his wrists, and what looked like a small semi-circle of curved black spikes sprung from his wide green forehead. They weren't as long or as thick as his normal horns, but looked much sharper. In fact, they looked more like barbed wire than anything else. "Let me guess - Kriedler?" He asked.  
  
Mwer just grinned at him savagely, like he was really going to enjoy ripping his throat out.  
  
Oh boy. Why couldn't he visit a bar without getting in a fight? Maybe this was the universe's way of telling him to drink at home.  
  
11  
  
The evil Lorne demon lunged for him first, coming at him with one of those wrist spikes. At the same time, Nose Ring came at him, probably hoping to make a Logan sandwich. He wasn't going to give them the chance - he lunged right back towards the evil Lorne, bringing his claw around to slash into his spike, or whatever it was.  
  
The spike seemed to shoot out further, punching through his gut before he slashed through it, but at the same time he punched through his shoulder, ripping down into his torso. Evil Lorne grabbed him with his one good hand and slammed his forehead into his, the barbed horns biting into his flesh before breaking like teeth on his adamantium skull.  
  
Logan reeled from the force of the blow - maybe his skull was harder, but the Evil Lorne had one made out of concrete - and Nose Ring landed a hard uppercut. But it was unfortunate for him, as his knuckles connected with his jawbone, and cracked on impact.  
  
The lamia made a strangled noise of pain, and Logan landed a kick in his midsection that sent him falling back into Blondie and Big Pants. There was a thud, and Evil Lorne cursed. Looking, Logan saw that one of his arms had fallen off, neatly lopped off at the shoulder. Evil Lorne didn't look hurt at all, he just looked pissed. "Now look what you did!" He snapped. "D'ya know how much it's gonna cost me to get that reattached?"  
  
"Boo hoo," Logan replied sarcastically, wiping blood off his head with his forearm. The cuts had already healed, but the blood itched.  
  
Goth Girl reached into her jacket, and pulled out a machete. "Maybe I should take yours."  
  
He shrugged. "Welcome to try, sister."  
  
Blondie pulled out what looked like a taser, and turned it on with an electric snap. "Maybe we'll take more."  
  
He shrugged, and waited for the girls to make their move. There was no way they could win this.  
  
And that's when the oddest thing happened.  
  
Someone grabbed Blondie's head from behind, and turned it violently backwards, the neck snapping so dramatically it sounded like a rifle shot. "I am not a nut job," Dru said, as Blondie fell to the floor like a bag full of sawdust. The stunned fellow demons looked at her, and she gave them an evil look, eyes narrowing in distaste and blood red lips thinning to a grim line. "And I don't like cold blood."  
  
Did what Lorne say about the lamias sink in? Or did she want him all to herself? Logan felt like he'd completely lost the plot here.  
  
Goth Girl swung the machete at Dru, which was a mistake. Despite her odd placidity, when Dru came to life, the speakers blew out. Dru grabbed her arm before she could complete the downward arc, and twisted it until it snapped, the machete falling from her limp hand. At the same time, she slammed a flattened palm into the girl's face, and she went down hard.  
  
Big Pants, who had done absolutely squat so far, pulled out a knife - for whatever good that would do - and went for her, but not for long. Dru grabbed him by the face, ignoring the knife completely, and said, "Make a wish."  
  
Then she drove her fingers right into his eyes.  
  
Fingernails first, she dug in deep, and the lamia screamed and dropped his knife, trying to get away from Dru's grip as she sunk her fingers in to the second knuckle. He spasmed, stiffened, and when she pulled her fingers out with a sickeningly wet "pop", he keeled over like he'd just had his throat cut. Logan wasn't sure if he was dead or not, but pink blood spilled down his face, and what was left of his eyes oozed down his cheeks like runny eggs.  
  
"You sick little bitch," Nose Ring roared, kicking a hole in a bar to splinter the wood. He grabbed up a jagged piece as a makeshift stake, but Dru had already snagged the Goth Girl's fallen machete. Before they could attack, a gunshot rang through the bar, making them all jump.  
  
Lorne had reappeared, this time holding a gun, which he had shot at the ceiling. But now that he had everyone's attention, he leveled it at the Evil Lorne, who had picked up his fallen arm and was still scowling at it sourly, like it was its fault it fell off. "Okay, we're all done here," Lorne announced. "We're leaving, and nobody else will have to die - unless you get in our way. Comprende?"  
  
Dru giggled, and licked some eyeball off her fingers. "A lot of people are going to die. It will be so much fun."  
  
"Whose side are you on?" Logan exclaimed, wondering if she was even capable of giving a straight answer. Maybe she didn't even know.  
  
But she just gave him that playful smile, her eyes sparkling with malevolent glee. There was just nothing behind those eyes, absolutely no one home, and it was enough to make you shudder. And he thought the Sisters were creepy. (Now that he thought about it, Spike did have a good point that one time - what was it with Angel and crazy women?)  
  
Nose Ring took advantage of her distraction to try and stake her through the back, but she spun gracefully on her toes, swinging the machete, and she effortlessly lopped off his head before he could even get close. She completed her twirl and did a tiny curtsey as his head rolled beyond the curtain, and his body toppled behind her.  
  
"What the fuck is your deal?" Evil Lorne asked her, equally annoyed and curious.  
  
"I think she just likes to kill things," Lorne offered. "Ready to go, big guy?"  
  
Logan sighed, wondering if he should go for Dru now or not, finish this, but it would be more beneficial to just leave her here to kill off everybody in Arcanum. Or they would kill her, which was basically a win-win situation any way you sliced it. "Yeah, I got what I I needed."  
  
"No you haven't," Dru said, a curiously humorous lilt to her voice. "But you will." Evil Lorne glared at her, and she looked at him with a big, beaming smile. "I bet you taste like chicken."  
  
"Get back to us on that," Logan replied, turning and walking away. Although turning your back on Dru was probably not wise, he had all his senses on full alert, and if anyone took a single step in his direction, he would know. As it was, no one did; Evil Lorne and Dru were locked in a staring contest, and Evil Lorne was finally realizing he couldn't win this one, even if he had two functioning arms.  
  
There wasn't any screaming until they reached the door, and by that time they were in the clear. Lorne still didn't put the gun away. In fact, he was gripping the handle of the snub nosed thirty eight like it was a lifeline, holding on to it so hard that his knuckles were paling to pastel.  
  
"So why would anyone bother to bring the lamias back if everyone hates them so much?" Logan asked, thinking out loud.  
  
"Well, bugger me sideways, amigo - I have no idea. But there are demons that just like to cause trouble and stir the pot. Or, they just want to kill all the Humans, which would rule out all parasitic ones, and ones that like to eat them … that actually leaves a pretty small list. Maybe you can start investigating there."  
  
Logan waited until Lorne pulled him through the cloaking spell to the other side, the real world, before he said, "Or someone wants to cut a deal with them, kill only specific Humans."  
  
Lorne scoffed. "Cut a deal with lamias? They're hardly the most trustworthy sorts. They'll kill whoever they want."  
  
"They can't kill other demons, can they?"  
  
"Not by eating their souls, no. But, otherwise, sure. Give 'em a machine gun or sulfuric acid -"  
  
"I think I've finally figured this out," he interrupted, feeling his skin prickle from the continued surveillance. Bloody wraiths. He saw that Thrak's cab was still parked in the same spot, clearly waiting for them. The idea that Lorne probably got his gun from him was a little frightening.  
  
"Really? Gonna clue me in here? 'Cause I'm pretty sure they didn't give me the right script."  
  
"What do you know about demon mobsters?"  
  
Lorne stopped in the middle of the street and stared at him, belatedly remembering to point his gun at the ground. "Mobsters? The mob is in this too? Oh shit, I really didn't sign on for that, mon frere."  
  
He didn't either, but that didn't stop it from happening. Still, at least he had a proper target.  
  
Now it was time to confront the Three Dragons head on, and see if he could clean up this whole mess. 


	9. Part 9

12

There was no point in dragging Lorne along with him - or Thrak, for that matter - so he had them drop him off in Chinatown, and told them it would be best if they got lost in a hurry. Although Lorne looked dubious about that, Thrak didn't need to be told twice - he took off like he was late for a high speed chase on Cops. Judging from the Evil Lorne's blasé reaction to getting his arm lopped off, he guessed Lorne's people weren't all that phased by dismemberment, which was probably a good thing since he was Thrak's passenger.

It wasn't a weekend, but that didn't matter too much. It was night, and the streets of Chinatown were crowded, much more than they had been on his previous visit. It was easy to get lost among the pedestrians, and the air was filled with things threatening to clog his senses. Normal smog, exhaust, and automotive noises were being drowned out by the scent of various foods and the sound of music and karaoke bleeding from the bars and restaurants. Although the crowd was predominately Asian, there were a lot more other races around, and he didn't stick out so much, which was a shame.

He made sure to walk on the right edge of the sidewalk, the one closest to the street, for maximum exposure. He was trying to figure out which bar would be his best bet when he picked up on his tail - a Chinese man in his late twenties, in an off the rack charcoal suit and white shirt with a pale gray tie. Boy, that didn't take long, did it?

He smiled to himself and kept going, pretending he hadn't noticed his shadow. The kid wasn't bad really; he kept a good distance, and even when Logan turned just enough to catch him in the corner of his eye, he turned away, but he was just too obvious, even in this crowd. Besides, Logan was convinced he'd know when he was being followed no matter the circumstances. Paranoid radar, perhaps.

He wasn't sure where he was going, he just kept walking, waiting for the tail to signal his friends and make his move, and finally, just as he came to the end of his third block, a sleek black sedan with black tinted windows, one of which was already down, revealing a stone faced Asian man sitting in the back. The tail made his move then, coming up behind him and pressing what felt like a gun in his back. "Get in the car, or a lot of people on the street are gonna die," he hissed in his ears, his breath betraying a hint of liquid courage. Whiskey specifically, and not a very good brand either.

He had to admit their switch of tactics was interesting. They must have known threatening him physically was a little pointless, so they decided to threaten civvies on the assumption he'd rather not see them hurt. A good bet, and one that suggested they were getting smarter, which was troubling.

The man in the back moved over, making room for Logan, and as he got in, he shot him in the throat. From the minor sting - a pinprick really - it was some kind of drug cartridge, and he pulled it out as he collapsed on the leather seat. "That's not a very warm welcome, is it?" He said in Cantonese, startling the stone faced guy slightly. "So what, you're gonna wrap me up nice and hand me over to the Yakuza as a kiss up gift?"

They were also smart enough to use a new drug, one his system had yet to encounter before; he could feel it coursing through his veins like a slow poison, although not nearly fast enough. He had time, if he wanted to, to rip through him, the gunman behind him, and possibly the driver. But because this was exactly what he wanted to happen, he let it happen and didn't fight it in the least.

In a way, it had done him a favor. He hadn't figured out how to fight so ineffectually as to make their capture of him believable. Taking him out with a heavy duty anti-psychotic also took care of all of his problems.

* * *

He didn't expect the loggers to be happy to see him or be otherwise cooperative, and there they didn't disappoint.

But he really didn't need their cooperation. He walked around the camp surreptitiously sniffing for blood, aware that no one could have come from that bloodbath and not taken a trace with them, and while most people would wash up straight after, most people didn't bathe as well as they thought. Blood could linger, spots and odors too faint for a regular Human nose to pick up. He knew Glenn was bringing in bloodhounds to try and find a trail, but he also knew that they would probably be a wash - there were too many competing scents in the forests, too many sloppy hunters and trappers who left other kinds of blood behind, and the dogs would lose the trail just as he had. And it bothered him that he could equate himself with a bloodhound, but there was no help for it now.

He found no good suspects, and when Berenson, leader of the camp, asked him what this was all about, he lied and said "equipment theft". Yes, they'd discover the truth shortly, but he didn't tell him the truth because he didn't like him, and they didn't need to know right now anyways.

Heading out, he took Millie along a different route to the crime scene, passing Crystal Creek and the pond where it came to an end ( a smaller creek ran from the pond on its northwestern side, but for some reason that was called Mud Creek, even though it was generally clearer than Crystal). And it was there that he scented blood.

Dismounting Millie, he took a closer look, and found some lingering traces of blood in a muddy patch on the left side of the pond, as well as an indent that was probably a partial footprint before it filled up with water. So the killer was aware enough to come here and wash up before they went back to wherever they were supposed to be. They couldn't have done a very good job, just a hasty removal of surface blood, but it would have been enough to avoid tracking it with them until they got to camp, where they could scrub up properly. That proved they had some elemental level of awareness, despite their murderous rage. Assuming, of course, it was done in a murderous rage.

What if it wasn't? What if it was a cold, calculating rage? What if this attack, as random and feral as it looked, had been planned? If so, he was dealing with an unbelievably dangerous person. Someone who knew very well what they were doing, and knew they could, in all likelihood, get away with it.

He stood close to where the footprint had been, facing the same way the killer had faced, and realized that, beyond all the thick pines and shrubs, they were facing toward Frontier. Coincidence? They just got out of the pond on this side?

_("No one from your town could have done this, could they?" Glenn had asked.)_

No. He knew those people as well as he could on a surface level, and no one was capable of this level of violence. But who knew what people were hiding really? Did he think he could dig up every single fact about everyone? After all, they thought he was an ex-cop, eccentric (he lived alone and far away from everyone else), but straight up and reliable, normal like them. But he had not technically been in the RCMP, nor was he anything approaching normal, even though sometimes he wished he was. He was a liar and a freak, who just had some friends - well, casual acquaintances really - in places that counted. If he could hide those truths from all of them, why couldn't one of them hide something from him? He didn't want to think it was true, but he was not perfect. Maybe his sense couldn't normally be fooled, but he was ultimately human, therefore prone to mistakes.

He was a liar; he should know other liars. He should know when people other than himself had something to hide, no matter how good they were at it. And Frontier was nothing but a town full of people who were hiding something. He had assumed their secrets were benign, but were his? He was fooling himself; someone in Frontier had a dirty little secret, something that had exploded in a terrible moment of carnage.

As he rode Millie back to town, he realized he had smelled something familiar at the pond, something beyond the blood, but that and some stagnant water had buggered his attempt to figure it out. He also remembered that "Father" Olson had his nephew Rudolph living in an outbuilding behind his "church". He hadn't thought about Rudy simply because he didn't see him much at all; he kept to himself, and didn't get out, except when he went off hunting, and even then he did it in the early morning hours so he didn't encounter anyone.

Early morning hours ...

Rudy was staying with Olson because - according to Jeremiah, who was hardly the bellwether of sanity himself - he'd had a hard time

"re-adjusting" after coming home from the war. Was it that simple? Had Olson's nephew completely snapped?

Rudy went hunting with a shotgun, and he only used knives to skin and dress what he caught, which was basically his food supply, as he liked being self-sufficient. But killing men, many men, with knives, hatchets, axes, and any other tools they could get their hands on, was not indicative of a man who was skilled at killing. Of course, they could have done that to be deliberately misleading, but now he was thinking in circles, and it would drive him crazy. He had to investigate first.

It was going on night now, the sky turning a curious shade of lavender-blue that you could only see here in the less developed higher elevations, and he returned Millie to the paddock before going on foot to Olson's, cutting through the woods so he wouldn't be seen. He went around the long way, so he approached from the back, coming to Rudy's shack first.

He listened carefully, sniffed around, but he wasn't in it. He saw lights and heard voices in Olson's cabin, so he figured he was in there. Approaching from the far right, so he couldn't be seen from Olson's windows, he went into Rudy's shack.

The only blood he smelled inside was animal - deer - and old, by a couple of days. There was a recently tanned deer hide hanging on the wall, and the acrid smell of the tanning chemicals made his eyes water, and threatened to drown out all other scents. There were some knives, but they'd been cleaned a couple of days ago, and hadn't been used since.

It was a very small place full of animal hides, with a small wood stove and a cot, and not much more. It looked more like a tanning shed than anything else, more a place of storage than a place where someone lived. Curious.

Not scenting human blood or pond mud, he crept out and started scenting the surrounding grounds, seeing if he could find anything. He smelled nothing like what he was searching for, nor did he see anything unusual. Rudy was still his best suspect - no one would know how to clean up after a kill better than an experienced hunter - but he had not a shred of evidence.

He decided to question him, find out where he was at the time of the crime, so he went up to Olson's house, taking a cursory glance in the window before he knocked on the back door. And he was glad he did, as it answered a couple of questions.

Olson and Rudy were inside, all right, kissing rather passionately, Olson pulling at Rudy's shirt, trying to take it off. Although he was momentarily surprised, he decided he'd come back tomorrow and left without knocking.

So that was Olson's big secret? Rather pedestrian, really. He figured, since he'd become so rabidly religious, he might have committed a felony at some point and felt so bad about it he went overboard - becoming a zealot because of some sense of shame or self-loathing was just kind of sad. But it explained why Rudy's shack seemed hardly lived in, and why Olson did his best to steer everyone away from Rudy, who was probably not his "nephew" at all (well, one would hope not...) - and it threw everything else he had said about him into the dubious category. After all, he was trying to hide the fact that he was his lover, meaning he could have made everything up, including his name.

He didn't make up that he was a hunter, though, and he was still his main suspect, as being Olson's inamorato didn't let him off the hook. It just meant he had to assume that everything Olson said about Rudy was a lie, simply because he didn't want his "secret" getting out. And why? He didn't understand why anyone cared what two legal, consenting adults did out of public view. But then again, why would anyone care if he was a freak with the nose of a bloodhound, and worse? Maybe people shouldn't care, but they did, and as long as they did, people like him - and Olson - were in hiding.

He walked back to his cabin, avoiding Main Street, coming up with a mental list of suspects. He started eliminated people he knew couldn't do it: the couple of young kids, the old men (not enough strength - and by the same respect, the women, although Maddie was pretty strong), and the men he knew to be too squeamish or passive to kill even one person, not to mention a whole entire camp. There were actually a couple of those.

What about Joshua Cloud? A sturdy young man who kept to himself most of the time, although he was good friends with the Hellers, he sometimes picked up a bit of work at the camps, but he stayed around the area. A bit quiet but not anti-social, he knew many of the loggers, and probably would have been welcomed into their camp without suspicion. But why would he snap and kill them all?

Unknown, but, as quiet and seemingly passive as Cloud was, he was known to have a temper as explosive as Logan had been accused of. One time he broke four of a man's ribs seemingly for no reason, although it was later revealed the man had been slurring his Indian heritage. And although he had never seen it personally, Cloud was supposedly a very mean drunk.

Cloud was muscular, in good shape from working itinerant logging and building his own cabin; he not only could have done it, but would know the layout of the camp quite well.

Of course this was all circumstantial at best - not even that, really; now it was mostly innuendo. But at least he had some place to start. Tomorrow he would talk to Rudy and Cloud, and decide if they were prime suspects or just convenient scapegoats. It was arrogant of him to think, but he really thought he would know the killer when he confronted him. Not just due to smell, but because of the look behind their eyes. He knew from the war that there was something in a killer's eyes that could chill you to the bone. Not just a person who committed a crime of passion or a soldier ordered against his will to kill - those looks were different, frightened, panicky. The ones who enjoyed killing ... there were no words for it. It was like a hollow in the pit of the soul, an inner darkness that you could glimpse if you just looked hard enough, although something in you didn't want to look that hard.

He couldn't adequately describe it, not to Glenn, not to himself. But he knew it when he saw it.

He cut through the woods quietly, heading back to his place, aware that smaller animals moved through the underbrush around him, owls fluffing up their feathers on branches over his head, and he managed to walk so quietly he startled many of them - a mouse skittered away in a panic before he could accidentally step on it. He couldn't even remember how he'd ever gotten so good at walking so carefully, softly, using the ball of his foot more than the soles, except that the knowledge had served him well on the French line. He could sneak up to enemy positions, get a head count, scan the weaponry they had on display, and sneak back to their camp to make a report. Sometimes Dubois would send him back in the very dead of night, in that sliver of time before dawn would break but the stars were in retreat, and he would sabotage equipment, or ...

No, he wasn't going to think about that now. He hated war, and all he had wanted to do was help his country. He spoke all the languages they were struggling with - Russian, German, French, Turkish, even Arabic - and when he was asked to come in as an interpreter by a friend, he couldn't say no. If he wished he had now, it was too late.

He noticed a glimmer of light inside his cabin, an oil light burning, and knew he had not left one burning. Why would he? He left at morning.

Instantly on guard, he scanned his surroundings before creeping in quietly towards the door. Would the killer be stupid enough to leave a light on for him? He didn't think so, but if they were completely out of their minds, maybe it was unintentional.

After carefully glancing in a window and seeing nothing, he decided to just go in the front door. They might be waiting for him yes, with a shotgun or a hatchet, but it didn't matter. That was his dirtiest little secret, the one that made him capable of what they wanted to give him that damn medal for. During the charge at Moreuil Wood, when they all rode head long into the advancing German forces, horses and men were getting cut down left and right. His horse was cut down beneath him - he could still remember the awful noise it made as bullets severed its right front leg; it was thankfully brief, as more bullets pounded into its chest and killed it before it could even hit the ground - and yet he rolled as he went down, bullets that had passed through him burning and throbbing like bruises on top of whip lashes, adrenaline shoving it all to one side like nettle stings, he grabbed the reins of a horse that was still on its (figurative) feet but had lost its rider to a hail of bullets that had rendered him little more than hamburger. The horse had actually been shot but had a crazy look in its eyes; it was in pain, he could smell it, but it was a stallion and it was angry. Any wounded animal - even a saddle horse - could be dangerous. In fact it almost tried to buck him off as he pulled himself up onto the bloody saddle, but it obeyed him as it urged him on, and they continued the charge. Both he and the horse got shot several more times, but they didn't hit anything vital or cut through its legs, and that angry beast brought him to the German line before it was finally cut down, but it was too late for them. He was among them with his pistols, his knives, and a blind rage that he couldn't control. It was partly pain from multiple gunshot wounds, partly anger at the men and the horses that had been killed just trying to get this far, partly outrage at the brains of the man - he did not know who; he was never sure who - splattered on his back, and partly hatred for being sent there in the first place.

He had no idea how many enemy soldiers he killed or incapacitated - he wasn't the only man to crash through the German line at the beginning of the assault, but he was the only one in that initial thrust to survive. He did remember taking out one of the machine gunners - he could remember him gaping at him, at the blood pouring down his chest from the gunshots wounds, staring goggle eyed at the wound in his cheek from a bullet that had ripped it open and taken off part of his ear. "You're not human!" He'd yelled in German, before Logan had shot him almost point blank in the chest. Luckily, none of the guys who understood German were close enough to hear that.

No, he wasn't human, and that's how he survived the initial assault, the bullets ripping through his indifferent flesh, hurting but never quite killing. Even his ear lobe grew back. That's why they could stuff their damn medal where the sun didn't shine: bad enough that they had made him a killer - did they really need to confirm what a freak he was?

When one of the line medics got through after the carnage, he screamed at him to leave him alone and tend to the others, which his commander thought was some kind of bravery. All he wanted was for him to stay away; he didn't want him to see the damage done, the wounds that were healing and the ones that were trying to. It had only confirmed his deepest fear: cut him and he would bleed ... but that was all he did. He could feel organs tear, muscles rip, his body break and buckle, but it wouldn't stop. Sometimes he would collapse, pass out, but he would always wake up better off than he had been left. Was there any injury dire enough to take him down? He wasn't sure, and he was afraid to find out. They thought he had an "angel on his shoulder"; they thought he was the "luckiest man on Earth". If only the truth was that rosy.

And he had found something in himself he didn't like. He had already known that his temper was not the best, but his pain, adrenaline, and anger had thrown him into a small, dark space in his mind, one where it felt like he'd partially left his body and his rage took over, that it was a separate beast from him and could overwhelm him any time he let his guard down. He feared he was insane, on top of everything else.

The killer could do his worst. He could shoot him, stab him, whatever. It would hurt like hell, maybe even put him down for a bit, but it wouldn't kill him. That was his ace in the hole, the one that no one knew, and no one could predict. It would be his edge over this man, no matter what he did to him.

He glanced in a window, but couldn't see anything, so he decided to just go in the front. He opened the door quickly but quietly, body turned to the side to present less of a target.

But it wasn't the killer waiting for him. Sitting on the edge of his most comfortable chair was Celia, her posture tense and yet somehow defeated, shoulders slumped and arms resting on her knees. She looked up as he came in, and he could see by the lamp's glow that she had been crying, her eyes puffy and red, and she was nervously fingering a cloth tissue held between her hands. "I hope you didn't mind that I came in to wait for you," she said, her voice small in the oppressive still of night.

He closed the door and warily looked around at the dancing shadows, half expecting someone else. She reeked of fear. "What's - what's wrong, Celia? Has something happened?"

She sniffed, wiping her nose delicately with the tissue before shaking her head. "Just me getting scared, that's all. Matty's staying with the Hellers - there's so many of them he ought to be safe. It's a terrible thing to realize you can't protect your child."

"What are you talking about?"

She looked up at him, and her dark eyes were accusing. "It wasn't a bear, Logan." Before he could say something, she added, "Look, I don't care what you want to tell the others, certainly I'm not going to tell them. But you could at least be straight with me."

Oh boy. He was sure Celia wouldn't tell anyone else, but only because she wasn't known to be close to many people. "What did Matt tell you?"

"Matt didn't tell me anything, or at least not anything that made a whole lot of sense. While you were gone, I thought I'd go over and ..."

"Oh shit. You went to Camp Baker? That's a crime scene, and - "

"I didn't go into it," she snapped back, irritated. "How could I? It was a bloodbath." She sniffed and dabbed delicately at her eyes with her tissue. The bottom of it looked shredded, as if she'd been tearing it up with her fingernails. "That wasn't a bear. Unless it was several of them."

Glenn was getting the bodies moved out, but in the meantime they had piled them in an equipment shed and locked it, to keep predators from tearing them up further. It was cold comfort that she hadn't seen them. "No, it wasn't. But I don't want to start a panic. I can find this man."

Her look softened, becoming surprisingly weary and sad. "Does it matter? I have such a bad feeling about this. Bad things have happened all my life, and I've tried so hard to save Matty from them ..."

"No, Ceel, don't think like that," he assured her. He went to her, crouched down before her so she didn't have to keep looking up at her. He could smell her fear, her anxiety, and see her almost overwhelming sorrow, too deep to even cry about. He was aware there was something she wasn't telling him, something more to this fear, and he wondered if it was any relation to her mysterious scar, or Matt's father, the supposedly dead man she never actually talked about. Was it all coincidental, or was this a hint that there was more going on than he realized? He gently clasped one of her hands in his, and told her, "Nothing's going to happen to you or Matt. I promise."

She stared into his eyes for a long moment, as if hunting for some sign of a lie, but she relaxed as she didn't find what she was looking for. "I don't care about me. Promise me that whatever happens, you'll protect Matty."

"I won't let anything happen to you or -"

"Promise me," she insisted.

"I promise. Nothing's gonna happen to Matt. They want him, they'll have to get through me first."

She nodded, then seemed to collapse forward, into his arms. He held her tight as she slid off the chair and on to the floor with him, burying her face in his neck. "I'm so scared," she whispered, her warm tears sliding beneath the collar of his shirt. He could feel her trembling, and held her tighter.

"Don't be," he whispered soothingly, stroking her sleek black hair. "Everything's gonna be all right."

But even as he said it, he had a sickening feeling it was a lie.

13

What kind of a fucked up mess did your life have to be that when you woke up groggy, chained to a chair, all you could think was _'Not this again'_? Semi-conscious, and yet already bored with his form of captivity. He needed a new life, or, barring that, a new hobby.

Logan sat up as straight as he possibly could, still a little groggy from the drugs, and worked a kink out of his neck while testing his bonds.

It felt like straight handcuffs keeping his wrists bound behind the chair, which was tricky - if they got him mad enough, he might be able to break them. The chair was metal, but the thin, decorative kind - it probably wouldn't be hard to break. In fact, he might be able to do it by throwing his weight around.

There was an added complication, namely that they'd used some kind of cuff to chain his right ankle to the chair leg. It was tight, he could feel the metal biting into his skin and the heat of his healing factor getting very pissed off with it, but the chair leg was thin enough that the shackle probably didn't matter.

"Are you wondering if the chair's bolted to the floor?" A slightly fey male voice asked, floating out of the darkness.

He was in an unlit office, the only illumination coming from the uncovered window that took up more than half the wall. He had a pretty good view of downtown L.A., where it met the unofficial border of Chinatown, and the golden lights from the near by skyscrapers cast everything in dim shadows. But Logan's eyes adjusted, and he could see where he was with a clarity slightly above Human average. The office looked like it belong to a lawyer, with an oak desk, a plush leather chair, and a wall of books off to the right. Maybe he was; mobsters needed lawyers too, and what was Chin? Okay, an entertainment lawyer, but it still counted.

The man in the plush chair behind the desk was the same stone faced man in the backseat who shot him with the dart. It was unusual for a big shot to do his own dirty work, so it was probably the right hand man of the head honcho of the Southern California branch of the Triad. "Wouldn't bolts ruin this lovely carpet?" Logan replied, somewhat sarcastically. From what he could see of it, it actually was a lovely carpet, thick piled and an unusually rich deep blue color.

The man chuckled, lighting up a cigarette. In the brief flare of the flame, the crags of his face looked sandblasted. "It's funny, but you don't look Japanese, Mr. Yashida." He took a deep drag, the orange tip of the cigarette glowing like an ember. "You know we're not alone, yes?"

"I guessed." Actually, he hadn't. The craggy man had a smell tainted by cancer, early stage lung cancer most likely, since he smelled its distinctive sickly sweet rot most strongly in every exhale. But there were two other smells, lingering from when they'd been in and left, and probably seeping under the door from where they were standing at their posts. One of the guards was cheap whiskey guy from the street; the other wore Drakkar Noir cologne, which was probably a weapon in itself. He had decided to play his cards as brazenly as possible - it might make his story seem unbelievable, but the truth was so outrageous they'd never accept it in a million years. "Do you know this is all an elaborate set up? That they're gonna kill you all, take everything you have, and your bosses in Beijing will be none the wiser?"


	10. Part 10

The man continued to chuckle, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke. "Is that so, Mr. Yashida? Do you think we're idiots?"

"Well, you did only cuff me to a chair, and there's only a couple of guards outside, so maybe."

He seemed very amused by him, although his chuckle started turning into a cough. It was a wet, ugly hack that would soon track the deterioration of his lungs into big bloody clots of dead tissue. He almost wondered if he should tell him. "Cocky, aren't we?"

"I gotta reason to be." He shifted on the chair as if uncomfortable, but he was subtlety testing it, trying to determine if he could break it with his weight. It felt like it; it seemed like the left rear leg was already a little loose.

"Oh yes, Bloody Friday. You know, almost no one in the Triad believed you existed. Or, if you did, that you acted alone. Did you?"

"I always act alone."

"Of course. Assassins generally do."

"I am not -" he began angrily, then stopped. It would probably be better if they did think of him as an assassin, even though it made his skin crawl to think of himself that way. "No one hired me to take out the Yashidas and the Takabes."

"They hardly needed to, did they? Still, the Yashidas accepted you into their family. You'd think there'd have been a bond -"

"Mariko accepted me," he snapped. "Not them. And they murdered her. They got what they deserved." The thought of it made him flush with anger, even though he couldn't remember the betrayal itself, or anything around it. All he had were some pieces of Mariko, slivers of broken memories, and the feeling that there was a wound there that could never be healed. That, and it confirmed that he could easily become the animal Stryker had accused him of being; there was something dark and ugly in him, something that could take over with frightening ease. And while he hated what he had done, and knew it was always wrong to become a mass murderer, a small part of him didn't regret it. He had some deep seated belief that she was the only woman who had ever loved him, who could love him, and that when she dies, she took the best part of him with her. He knew he died too, he just wasn't sure how, and it pained him to dwell on it too long.

He could see the man nodding, the orange dot of light bobbing up and down. "Betrayal is an ugly thing. I don't understand why they would do such a thing and not kill you first. No offense, but that's sheer idiocy on their part."

"They tried."

"Did they? Well, if there were more alive than just the one, you'd think they'd try harder next time."

"If you do the job for them, will there be a next time for them?"

He leaned forward, tapping ash into a brass ashtray, and said, "We could kill you, Mr. Yashida. We have little doubt of that, although, on the other hand, we know we couldn't do it without suffering quite a few casualties. We know what happened in Hong Kong, and unlike the Yakuza, we learn from our mistakes."

He wasn't sure they had earned the right to be cocky, but he let that go. "So you're not planning to kill me?"

"No, of course not. We have a proposition for you, Mr. Yashida. Work with us, and you can have Sanjiro Yashida, and all the Yakuza you want, frankly. Just stay out of our way."

Logan snickered, not at all surprised. "Betrayal is an ugly thing."

Triad man chuckled again. "We have no loyalty to them, and they have none to us. In fact, we're sure they're thinking of ways to sabotage us."

"So you beat them to the punch?"

"I prefer to think of it as throwing a curve ball."

"What is this proposition?"

"In exchange for your freedom - and our looking the other way - we'll give you all you need to know about Yashida's schedule, bodyguards, and compound. He has more security than your President, you know - he's that frightened of you."

"He's not my President; I'm Canadian. And I'm supposed to believe this isn't a trap, is that it?"

"We have you now. Why would we let you go to just take you again? It doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does - if you want to look good and trustworthy to them, help take me down in front of them."

He nodded, exhaling a cloud of smoke that reeked of decay. "Okay, that's a point in your favor. But they'd never believe we didn't set it up; the Yakuza are an oddly paranoid bunch."

"Gee, I wonder why."

He chuckled again, and leaned back in his chair, making it creak. "I like you gaijin. You could really have a spot in this organization."

There was no way he could know he had picked the absolutely wrong word. "I'm not for hire."

"A complete and utter shame. Still, I think we can work something out. We will never come after you for what you did in Hong Kong; you will fall off Triad radar like you never existed. As long as you kill no more of us, we will never look twice at you."

"You're not offering me anything I can't acquire on my own. Disappearing is one of my talents."

"I gathered. But don't you see what a valuable thing it would be to have the Triad as a friend, not an enemy? We're wider spread than you may think."

What really bothered him - besides the insulting nature of trying to bargain with him - was the sudden idea that this could indeed be handy. The Organization seemed undying and formidable, filled with a seemingly endless supply of cannon fodder ... but that description fit the Triad as well. Part of him was tempted to turn the rabid dogs on each other, see who would win if anyone did. You'd think the Triad would be at an immediate disadvantage, because the Org was some kind of multi-national mutant obsessed black ops group, but the Triad was very much like a terrorist organization: loosely connected cells with no single headquarters to take out; sleepers who could be activated at a moment's notice; a buttload of cash at hand, and more weapons than an average Marine unit. They would also have the advantage of surprise, as the Organization would never expect them to attack them, nor would they take it seriously. Until, of course, the Triad took out one of their units, which could happen. He didn't think much of these organized crime thugs, but they were brutal and efficient, and they could adapt if they had to.

Still, this was a deal with the devil. You couldn't trust them; if there was no honor among thieves, there was even less among mobsters. "I've had bad experiences trusting crime families."

"Of course. But we are not Yakuza. They pretend that they understand honor, but they take it or leave it as they desire. We know honor, and it isn't anything you can trifle with. I'm willing to sign something in blood if that would convince you."

Holy shit. Although that too could be easily ignored by the Triad, it was still quite an offer. "What's your name?"

"Wing. I am not without power or prestige."

"I guessed." And he had; perhaps he was someone's right hand man, but not as a lackey, as a second-in-command. He was too elegant, too well spoken to be just a highly placed thug. "Aren't you at all curious about what I said?"

"That the Yakuza plans to kill us all?"

"Not the Yakuza. In fact, they're a target as well. Your third dragon."

He "Hmmed", taking another drag of his cigarette. "Ah yes, Farik's group. They did appeal to our greed; it was the only thing that could pull us together. So you say they're planning to kill us all?"

"And take over both groups, yes. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I have contacts who know the truth. Farik isn't to be trusted." He wondered who Farik was, beyond the leader of the demon gang. Maybe Lorne would know, or could find out.

Wing exhaled noisily, making it a sigh. "I know. They promised us too much for too little - that itself is suspicious. And all these deaths being attributed to this new drug of theirs is worrying. They claim its not the drug itself but the users combining it with other things, but that seems to be stretching credulity."

"The deaths bother you? You're pimping drugs to kids, smuggling weapons, extorting small businesses, bleeding gamblers dry, executing stool pigeons. No offense, but you're hardly the kind to flinch."

There was such a long pause he knew he had offended him in some fundamental way. But when he did speak, there was no trace of it in his voice. "Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I don't like having the deaths of children on my hands. Adults make their choices, they know what they're doing, whether they admit it to themselves or not. Children ... they're impulsive, they're reckless, they often act without a single clue to what they're doing. Maybe the others have no problem with it, but it bothers me. There isn't enough money to mollify the guilt of killing the innocent."

There was something about his gravitas, the way he said it, the timbre of his voice, that suddenly made Logan think that Wing had lost a child, and that's precisely why it stuck in his craw. He could coldly murder someone who hadn't paid their extortion money, but when it came to anyone under twenty, he wouldn't pull the trigger. An odd dichotomy to be sure, and not one that made him at all sympathetic, but it did mean he might be trustworthy here. He wondered if he could alter his plan of attack just a little bit. "You do realize that if Farik's group is attacked successfully, the truce will shatter, and the Yakuza will probably declare open war on you."

"Of course. But we can handle them. How long have we been at war with each other? So the war continues - so what? It's better than this uneasy, duplicitous truce. It's a time bomb that's ticking, and we all know it."

A pragmatist. Rare among the crime bosses. "Do you have a group of people you can trust implicitly, who will follow your orders even if they countermand the dictates of the higher Triad orders?"

He paused again, taking a drag, but this time it seemed he was carefully considering his question. "Of course. The new breed has little concept of honor, and you need trustworthy soldiers to watch your back so they can't stick their knives in it."

He shifted in the chair again, but this time it was only because his butt was getting numb. "What say we cut a deal, Mr. Wing? But different than the one you proposed."

"Different how?"

"Fuck Yashida, I don't care about him if I can get a bigger fish. What I want to do is hit Farik's group, tear them apart, erase them from the face of the Earth. And that means making anodyne history. Could you live with that?"

He mulled it over, cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. "Easier than I could live with more children's blood on my hands. There are other drugs, and other ways to make money. Do you have a plan?"

"I do, but I'd like to get out of these cuffs first."

"Would you like the key, or would you rather break out of them on your own?"

He smirked at him. "You knew I could get out of this?"

"Mr. Yashida, you, unarmed, charged an illegally modified Army helicopter - and walked away. Somehow I doubted that handcuffs and a few trusted men would slow you down much." Wing reached into a drawer and retrieved a set of keys, then got up with a slightly painful grunt. "So what plan do you have?"

"First, tell me why you cuffed me when you knew it wouldn't matter."

He was a slender man, almost painfully so, cancer already starting to eat away at him from the inside out. But his suit was tailored and probably very expensive, and he moved with some grace, trying not to betray the fact that he was in pain. "I was rather curious. To hear the Yakuza talk about you, you're a psychopathic beast barely capable of speech. It was in my best interest to determine your nature before attempting to make a deal with you."

"And what did you determine?"

He gave him an oddly bemused look before walking behind the chair and taking off his cuffs. "That you're a rational man, capable of sharp tactical thinking, and that the Yakuza have every right to shit themselves at the thought of you coming after them."

Logan chuckled as he rubbed his wrists; the cuffs had been a little tight. Wing dropped the keys in his palm, and said, "I'm sorry, but bending down is something of a challenge for me nowadays."

"I understand." As he unlocked the cuff around his ankle, he asked, "How long do you have?"

"My god, is it that obvious?"

"To me, yeah."

He hobbled back over to the desk and didn't so much sit back down in his chair as collapse with a relieved sigh. "About a year. If I must be completely selfish, I realized I didn't want my legacy to be anodyne, or this disastrous truce with the Yakuza. It will fall apart, and I'd hate too be too sick and medicated to enjoy an invigorating 'I told you so'."

Logan smirked, wanting to tell him that the lamias would guarantee the "truce" would hold, because they'd infect every higher ranking member or kill them, but then again, it wouldn't be a proper truce at all - the Three Dragons would be all demon, and perfectly unstoppable. He thought he might have to convince a Human that they had to stop the demon insurgency in its tracks, but he had forgotten how the rivalry of the Yakuza and triad could really work in his favor if he found an old guard - like Wing - who wouldn't trust the Dragons either, no matter how much money they poured in their coffers. He was no less a criminal, but he was a criminal who could be a huge asset to his plan. "If I agree to work with you, I want something in return," Logan told him. It wasn't a question.

He nodded, the orange point of light floating up as he took another drag. "Not Yashida?"

Logan tossed the keys back on his desk, but didn't bother to get up from the chair. "Without the extra men to protect him, he'll be easy to get once the Dragons have shattered. No, I want something slightly more intangible."

"Now I'm curious."

"A favor. I want you to owe me one, that I can call in at any time, no questions asked."

"Just the one?" He replied, sounding amused. "You are after something, Mr. Yashida."

"Do I have your word?"

"About that?" He waved the cigarette in the air, tracing lines in the smoke plumes. "Of course. If that's what you want, it's easy enough to give. But I'd suggest you call in your chit within a year's time."

"Understood." He got up, still rubbing his wrists to hide the fact that the chafe marks were rapidly disappearing, and considered how to make his new plan work. Come to think of it, having the Triad - or at least part of it - play along made things a lot easier. "Here's the plan. Demand that Farik meet you to discuss a new monetary agreement - now - or you'll pull the Triad out of the Dragons."

"Why?"

"What you just said - the death of children. Say your conscience will bother you much less with the right amount of cash."

Wing chuckled anew. "They expect a greedy amoral bastard to say just that."

"Exactly. Tell 'em what they expect, and they don't question it."

"Very true."

"And insist he do so right away, meet you in "neutral" territory you designate, and emphasize that you don't want the Yakuza to know."

He hissed a breath through his teeth. "I trust Farik's group almost as much as I trust Yashida's bastards. There's no guarantee they won't betray us."

"Actually, I'm counting on it."

There was a pause as he exhaled another cloud of smoke. "Damn I like you. Are you sure you're not looking for steady employment?"

"Positive, but thanks. Do you have a pen I can borrow?"

Wing slid a small notepad and a pen over to the front of the desk, and Logan retrieved it, quickly scribbling the address of the place that Argenis had secured for him. He slid it back over to Wing, and said, "Insist that it be an "informal" meeting to keep the profile low, which means you'll have to start the meeting with only a handful of trusted men inside. The rest must show up after the meeting has begun, because I assume they'll check out the area beforehand to make sure it's not a trap. Can you handle that?"

He scratched his head, and a few stray, brittle hairs fell from his scalp, which had just started showing a receding hairline. A year was probably a generous estimate. "If they intend to betray us and take us out of the picture, it could get violent very quickly."

"I know. But I'll be watching you until the rest of your men show. I'm an expert sniper."

"Of that I have little doubt. But how do you know they won't find you when they're checking out the grounds?"

"Because they won't. If I can't avoid them, I deserve to be killed."

He nodded, as if Logan had just confirmed something he already knew. "You're a craftsman."

"Huh?"

"Most assassins - Hollywood portrayals aside - are simply thugs with an attention to detail. But the best are akin to artisans or martial artists, not psychopaths who want to make an easy dollar. Yet it seems that honor is a very hollow word nowadays; everyone throws it around like it means something, but it's just another commodity to them, something negotiable, something that can be bought and sold. But you understand it, don't you?"

He felt nonplussed, uncomfortable with this whole topic, and didn't know what he wanted him to say. "I'm not so sure."

Wing realized he had touched a nerve, but he proved himself to be an old fashioned gentleman - in spite of being a gangster - by changing the topic. "Well, at least I am. Any more conditions?"

"I need to vet your people before we do this."

"Vet? Do you mean inspect the troops?" He sounded like he was on the verge of laughing.

"Not precisely; they don't have to even see me. It's just that the Dragons have a ... unique way of infiltrating other groups, and I know them when I see them." Well, smelled them, but he could hardly say that. "I just want to make sure none of your loyal operatives have been compromised and will sell us out ... prematurely."

"And how will you know if they are?"

He gave him a half grin, hoping he'd accept it as his "cocky" nature and not press too much. "Trade secret."

"You do live to intrigue me. Or infuriate me. I could never quite tell them apart."

"I bet your marriages were fun."

He grunted humorously. "Oh yes, all three of them." He set his cigarette in the ashtray, and asked, "Are you expecting me to make the call now?"

"Up to you. But the sooner we finish this, the safer we're all be."

"Ah, there's the rub. I know you hate the Yakuza as much as I do, or I wouldn't have even proposed a deal. But I doubt you have much love for any of us, so why do you care if we're "safe" or not?"

"I don't. What I care about is everyone who will be effected after the Dragons complete their takeover."

"They're that much worse than us?"

"Believe it or not, yes."

He laughed, which soon petered out before it became a cough. "You're too honest to survive in the Triad. It's a pity."

He shrugged, not sure he should point out he'd rather be dead than in the Triad or the Yakuza. He was making a deal with the devil, and he knew he'd probably regret it. But he decided to be sorry later, assuming that he survived the night.

14

Logan knew he was discovering many disturbing things about himself tonight, but he couldn't think about that right now.

The place that Argenis had described as "that place off Crestmore" was an abandoned movie studio, or at least part of one, and not one that had ever been big enough or successful enough to garner the attention of those who protected such "antiquities". As a result, it looked like someone had air dropped an airport hanger in the middle of an oddly rural looking patch of run down suburb between downtown L.A. proper and Chinatown. The windows had been long ago broken out and boarded up, so he made sure to bust out parts of the boards so he could have a view inside.

Wing had done good - very good. Because he honestly didn't want to keep killing children with anodyne (or at least he thought that was doing it), he was totally convincing in his adamant refusal to go any further with this. And as a result, it made his demand for more money believable. Farik, who sounded gravel voiced and stereotypical demonic over the phone, agreed to meet at four in the morning at the Crestmore address. He was so agreeable, Logan just knew he was planning to kill Wing.

The hand picked, loyal guard that Wing had selected for this "operation" were clean - or at last not infected by lamia or any other type of demon he could smell - and he instructed them very carefully. He'd be going in with Alcoholic Boy and Cologne Boy, along with another bodyguard he had mentally dubbed "No Neck", for obvious reasons. The rest would appear exactly eight minutes after Wing and the others had arrived, if all went according to plan.

There wasn't much in the way of coverage surrounding the sight, but he found some cover in a small stand of trees, and found a good place to hide the M96 rifle that Wing actually supplied him with. The most frightening thing is, as soon as he felt the rifle in his hands, he knew not only was it a good one, but he knew how to use it. He hadn't been lying when he said he was an expert sniper.

The demons came to check out the sight, and soon left, never seeing him. He wondered if the protective amulet that he got from Argenis had helped at all, or if it was coincidence. He honestly couldn't tell if they were casting spells or just speaking in their own language.

He knew he wasn't going to wipe them out, even if everything went according to plan. He'd talked to a surprisingly drunk Lorne via phone, and discovered that the lamias basically had a "queen", and as long as she was alive or in this dimension, they'd have a way in. But he had no idea how you would determine who was the queen over any plain old lamia, so Logan was on his own there.

Which presented a new problem. He would have to capture one alive, even if the Triad didn't like it. He simply had to hope they weren't all wiped out by the Triad when they hit - but maybe that's where the Yakuza diversion would come in handy.

Or maybe not. Jesus, what a fucking high stakes gamble this was. It was going to be a bloodbath, even if all went as well as he had hoped. He really did need to have his head examined. Again.

Okay, maybe not. That never did work out for him, did it?


	11. Part 11

Waiting was always the worst part of any sniper operation ( ... how the fuck did he know that?! ...), but he found he could hit an almost Zen state of meditation by focusing on the soft noises of the wind rifling through the grass, the animals moving through the foliage. It was mostly mice, an occasional rat, and a cat or two, with a bat hiding somewhere in the higher branches.

There were less peaceful noises as well, mainly road noises, which seemed to travel far in Los Angeles. Every now and then the thumping bass lines of what was basically a stereo on wheels would threaten to break his concentration, or at least snake its way inside his brain in that insidious way that only music could accomplish. He managed to block it out though, focusing on the broken down movie set and its rusting walls until it almost looked like it was glowing against the background of night.

There was a danger he could doze off, but he was far too wired. Meditation was one thing, but sleep was another.

Time compressed, shrank, and became the hum of a car engine rapidly approaching. It was an armored, truncated black limousine, and out of the back stepped one of the ugliest looking demons Logan had ever seen.

He appeared to have been stuccoed, with cadaver gray flakes of tissue stuck all over his thick limbed body, and eyes that looked like piss holes in snow. His face was oddly flat, like his nose was not just an afterthought, but one of Michael Jackson's spares stapled on.

Although he wore a Prada suit, he pulled up a hood, hiding his patchwork face in its dark folds, and Logan guessed that's how he passed for Human. Maybe he said he had a disease or something, was disfigured, and people, not generally inclined to believe in such things as demons, bought it. But looking at him dead on, it was kind of hard to swallow.

His "assistants" looked Human, his driver and bodyguards, but even though they managed to hide the pink in their eyes (contacts?), Logan could smell from here that they were lamia. He was hoping that would happen - why use guns and murder a high placed Triad when you could just get his soul eaten and replaced by one of your lackeys? It was unlikely cancer would hurt them, and if his personality changed, who would dare point it out?

They turned on lights and went inside the movie set, and even as he tracked them through the scope of the sniper rifle, he could hear them complaining about the filth of the place. Stucco monster - Farik, most likely - was not lamia, so that suggested he was one of the masterminds behind the Dragons, and while of use to him in one sense, no use to him in a general sense. He wasn't sure if he should bother to keep him alive, but, come to think of it, he didn't know what kind of demon he was, so he had no idea if he could kill him or not. He supposed it might be interesting to find out.

A black Saturn came wending down the broken asphalt road leading to the former studio back lot, meaning Wing had shown up on time. He got out of the car with Alcoholic Boy, Cologne Boy, and No Neck, and even though Wing was the only one who knew Logan was there, he never once looked around - he kept his gaze on his car, his men, or the building. He was so fucking good it was almost scary.

The soundstage interior was basically empty, all equipment and props having been moved out, sold, or stolen long ago, but there was a pretty thick layer of grit, and some detritus such as broken glass, plaster dust, and broken wood littering the floor, the filth that Farik had been talking about. Even from here, Logan could hear it crunching under their feet as Wing and his men went inside, and it sounded like Farik was complaining about the shithole he wanted to see them in.

Logan kept watching them carefully, trying to will them to keep their distance from Farik and his men, and luckily they seemed to do just that. Of course they could bust out their telekinesis or whatever it was they used to keep their victims in place, but he didn't think they were going to use that until they absolutely had to. As far as they were concerned, they were in control of the situation, and there was no need to use anything drastic ... yet. Time was no friend of theirs, though, so the sooner they could get this done, the better.

Wing was stalling expertly, explaining how much money was necessary to get them to keep playing ball and stay in the Dragons, but Farik was clearly growing very impatient with him and their surroundings.

He heard movement around him, footsteps, and he briefly changed his aim until he confirmed that it was who he was expecting to see. As soon as he saw the first of Wing's men, he hissed, "You could be quieter, you know. Secret sting operation and all."

Lotus scowled at him like he smelled bad and dressed funny. "I don't recall him saying we had to take orders from you too."

It was rare for a woman to be in a security - read "thug" - position in either the Yakuza or the Triad, in spite of popular fictions, simply because they were "traditionalists", which was just a nice way of saying "chauvinistic". Not that there weren't women in either group, there were, but rarely as soldiers. Occasionally as spies, and even assassins (poison being their weapon of choice), but rarely. The reason Lotus was an exception was because she was obviously related to Wing; he could see it in the sharp, hard lines of her face, in the color of her eyes and the shape of her mouth. She was a little taller than him, more solidly built, but she would be since he was slowly being consumed by cancer. Behind her, the rest of Wing's trusted crew was standing at attention, all male, but also cognizant enough to know they capitulated to her orders, or faced the boss.

Lotus looked beyond him, at the airplane hangar, her eyes and lips both narrowing in equal measure. "Have they made a move?"

He was willing to let it go for now. "No, but they're gonna. The boss is a scaly lookin' creep, and I want him alive if possible. And maybe one of his lackeys."

"Excuse me? Who said we were taking hostages?"

"There is even more scary shit going on than you know about. I just need to talk to 'em, discover the name of the true big boss. Then you can have 'em and do whatever the fuck you want with them."

She let out a small, derisive snort, and was probably about to insult him, but they both heard noise on the road, and turned their attention back to it. A dark blue sedan was gliding up the road, as silent as a shark, and Lotus muttered, "The Yakuza shits right on time. Maybe you'll get lucky and Sanjiro will be among them."

"How likely is that?" He didn't want to point out he wouldn't know Sanjiro Yashida from any other Japanese guy, because it would surely reveal that his whole "I want revenge" shtick was a steaming pile of horseshit.

Four sharply dressed, broad shouldered men stepped out of the car when it finally came to a halt, and just the way they moved told him they were well armed and prepared to kill. Sanjiro surely wasn't among them, as these were hardcore muscle, guys who simply got the job done with a minimum of talking.

"You using that rifle?" She asked.

"No, I'm a hand to hand man." He handed it to her without looking, knowing she'd take it. She did, and as the Yakuza went into the hangar, she said, "Get moving. I'll cover you from here, and join the party as soon as I confirm there's no other watchers."

Logan just shrugged, but waited for her men to follow her orders before he moved out, deliberately trailing behind them. He wanted to see if he got an opening at Farik in the initial chaos.

As soon as the Yakuza entered, he could see Wing's men tense, clearly waiting for someone to make a move, while Farik and his lamias seemed not just to relax, but gloat. Wing, for his part, was so cool it was like no new players had entered the field; he must have had ice water in his veins. Either that, or caring was just something best left to those who knew they had a lot more living in them.

They spread out and stalked across the ground with remarkable silence; Logan was honestly surprised the Triad men had that much grace in them. They were several meters away from closing in when a crack echoed through the early morning air, and Logan felt the wind of the bullet pass near him before it burst through the partially wood covered window and made a Yakuza's head explode into a cloud of blood and brain matter.

And that's when everything turned into a Tarantino film.

Chaos reigned as both the Yakuza and the Triad inside started firing at each other, and the demons decided to escape out the back. He let the Triad guys outside run towards the hangar, firing their own guns all the way while Lotus continued laying down covering fire from the clutch of trees, and he cut towards the back, intending to intercept Farik and his men.

Bullets screamed through the air, some nicking him or full on hitting him, but he was so pumped with adrenaline he didn't really notice. He saw shadows on the road, and knew they weren't their people, so he shouted in Chinese, "Incoming! Up the street!" Maybe they heard him over the din of gunshots and screams, and maybe they didn't - he had no idea. But as he rounded the corner, smelling the lamia before he saw him, the guy who had been acting as Farik's driver leveled his gun and fired.

The bullet hit Logan square in the chest, and the impact sent him staggering back (it felt like he'd taken a sledgehammer to the breastbone), but the bullet had hit his sternum and ricocheted right off the adamantium, and hit the gunman right in the shoulder. He seemed stunned, dropping the gun and grabbing his arm before collapsing to the scrub grass. "Fuck it, Lew, he shot me!"

A guy who had been acting as Farik's bodyguard stared at him, eyes glowing pink now in spite of the contacts, but after a moment he hesitated, and said, "Sir, run! He's not -"

But before he could tell Farik he was immune to the lamia's soul sucking hold, there was an oddly familiar sounding "whoomf", a softly muffled explosion, followed by a faint but growing whine as something sliced through the air down the line of the road.

Holy shit - the Yakuza had shoulder mounted rocket launchers? Well, why not?

He hit the ground barely a second before the missile plowed into the hangar and exploded, sending out a devastating shockwave that seemed to smash him into the ground like a cigarette butt as a blistering gush of heat blew right by him, carrying molten metal and flaming wooden debris. He didn't think any hit him directly, but it came plummeting down to earth around him, thudding down like pieces of fallen satellites.

Once the roaring white noise started to fade from his ears, he pushed himself up to his knees, trying to avoid the flaming patches of grass,

and glanced around to see who was left standing. Either the Yakuza didn't realize the strength of the projectile, or they honestly wanted to kill everyone here, their own men included. He could smell the stench of burning flesh, saw a few scattered limbs, but few intact corpses. Some people were alive, farther away from the impact site, but they weren't much of a threat at the moment - they seemed to stagger like zombies, more interested in making sure they had all their parts - more or less - before continuing the fight.

The lamias were down, but he couldn't tell if they were just unconscious, stunned, or dead. He thought he saw Farik in one piece, though, and charged towards the robed figure, finally popping his claws. He must have heard something, because he turned towards him, but if he was going for a weapon he didn't have time to grab it. Logan seized him by the throat - it felt nauseatingly spongy - and made sure he could see the claws on his other hand. "Where's the Queen?" He snarled into his ugly, flaky face. "Where's the fucking lamia queen?! Tell me or I'll see how long your species survives evisceration!"

His hideous face split into a grin, revealing tiny, pointed teeth like sharpened candy corn. "You think you scare me, Human?" He exhaled a scoff right into his face, and Logan winced at his fetid breath, which smelled like a compost heap full of rotting animal carcasses. "You don't know my kind at all."

Suddenly he was aware that his acrid breath seemed to be eating its way down his throat, and it was like a solid thing filling his throat, blocking his nasal passages. He tried to talk, to cough, but couldn't do either. He let him go and staggered back, trying to spit out whatever it was that was in his throat, but he couldn't do it. Warm, salty liquid was now gushing down his throat, spilling out his nose, and before he even saw it or tasted it, he knew it was his own blood.

"I guess you were unaware of the poison gland my species has in their throat," Farik said, obviously gloating. "If inhaled, it liquefies Human tissue almost instantaneously, but I guess you know that now, don't you? You should never touch a Sclerran, moron."

Sclerran? Even as he struggled to draw a breath and felt blood filling his lungs, he knew that name was familiar. Suddenly Angel's voice came back to his panicky, oxygen starved brain: _"Sclerrans are covered with scales, but armored ones, kind of like armadillos. They're infiltrators; extremely nasty."_

Holy shit - yes, now he remembered! Yasha had a poison in her medicine cabinet specific to killing Sclerran demons, which Angel had figured out, even though he had no idea why she'd have it, since Sclerrans were a rare form of parasitic demon. But now he knew, and it made sense. Yasha must have heard that a Sclerran was the head of the demon mob that created the Three Dragons; the poison had been for him.

But Yasha was dead, and Angel was as good as dead - and he had the poison (or Wesley - also dead - did) last. Too late to get it now.

He collapsed to his knees, weak and dizzy, feeling the blood stream down his face. Farik leered down at him, enjoying his victory. "Don't you feel like a complete fucking asshole?" The Sclerran asked gleefully.

But the overwhelming pounding in Logan's head was fading, as was the amount of blood trickling down his throat, and he felt feverishly hot. His healing factor was kicking in, and he could breath a little through his nose. He felt like spitting at him, but decided to wait until he was strong enough to gut the bastard. No need to waste the element of surprise just to put a boot in the ribs of a fuckhead who wouldn't really appreciate it.

That was when the left side of Farik's head exploded. In a single burst of corpse gray flesh and reddish-black blood, the left half of his face was almost completely blown away, leaving a flap of his skull and scalp hanging down and fragments of jaw bone sticking out, dripping with blood and shredded scales. He staggered back a step, and his single remaining eye locked on the person who shot him. "You've sealed your doom, gangster," he growled, speaking astonishingly clearly considering he now had just half a mouth. "

Logan saw, out of the corner of his eye, Wing holding one big fucking handgun, a .357 Magnum, the type immortalized by "Dirty Harry". He must have had some major league ammo in that thing to leave an exit wound almost as big as Farik's head. "Like I honestly care, you inhuman piece of shit."

Inhuman? Was he just insulting him, or did he know he wasn't Human? Logan had no time to ask, as he saw Wing's shoulder tense, and he knew he was going to shoot again, and he honestly didn't know if completely losing his head would kill him (well, he was still functioning with half a head - that was pretty fucking hard core). So Logan gathered what strength he had - although he was feeling stronger by the minute - and lunged at Farik, crashing into his knees as Wing fired his second shot. It missed the demon as he hit the ground hard, and Logan didn't wait for him to recover, if indeed he could. He climbed up his body and jammed his claws in his gut, making him issue a high pitched squeak that wanted to be a scream, but wasn't.

"Tell me where she fucking is," he roared, twisting the claws in his gut ever so slightly. "Or I will rip you to fucking pieces!"

"Can I shoot his kneecap, or would that bother you?" Wing asked politely.

"Knock yourself out."

"Wait, wait!" Farik shouted, as there seemed to be movement on the open half of his face. Was it starting to grow back? Maybe a little bit, but not nearly fast enough. "She's in Palo Alto! At Saint Alban's! Go and get killed, you stupid meat bags!"

"Is that good enough for you?" Wing wondered.

Logan shrugged. "Guess so." He ripped his claws through Farik's stomach, making him scream and lurch upwards, and as he did, Wing shot him almost point blank in the face, obliterating what was left of it. Although Logan was temporarily deafened in one ear by the sound, and some of Farik's slimy bits splattered on his face, he didn't really care.

As soon as he could hear again, he heard Wing asking, "Think that'll kill him?"

"I'd hope so. Things that don't need their head to survive freak me out a bit."

"Do you encounter many of those?" Wing wondered, sounding slightly amused. He offered him a hand up, but Logan shook his head and stood up on his own, wiping Farik off his face.

"Not many. You know, for a higher ranking Triad, you're pretty hardcore."

"How else did I get where I am? Bake sales?"

Okay, yeah, point for him. Until he pulled out the Magnum, something about his quiet dignity reminded him of Tagawa, but now the differences between the men were quite obvious, as he couldn't imagine Tony so coldly pulling the trigger on anyone. Wing put the gun away like it was a cigarette pack, casual as hell. There was sporadic gunfire, but farther away down the road, where the missile came from. "I hope you weren't offended by what I said," Wing continued, looking around as if to make sure the area was secure. "I simply meant him."

"Huh?"

"Inhuman. I don't think of all of you that way."

"What? Are you -" Logan began, then paused. Oh shit - he thought Farik was a mutant. And he knew he was one too. "What gave me away?" He asked, somewhat sarcastically.

Wing did pull out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and replied, with a slight smile, "Well, if the whole helicopter thing wasn't a give away - and it was - there's the fact that the Yakuza has been circulating pictures of you taken circa 1980, and you haven't aged a day. Either you have the greatest plastic surgeon ever, or you're not normal. And now I see you have knives in your hands. How on Earth do you get on airplanes?"

"I avoid metal detectors."

"Funnily enough, so do I." He lit his cigarette off a small pyre of hangar debris, which was lighting up the early dawn quite nicely, and gave him a funny look. "Are you all right? You're rather bloody."

"I get over things fast." But he was tired, post intensive healing exhaustion, and he hated the tacky taste of blood and demon poison in his mouth.

"I wonder if the Yakuza will," he mused, that tight, evil smile reappearing on his face.

"What d'ya mean?"

"The leader of the Dragons is dead - well, perhaps - and it seems like the Yakuza is responsible. Oh dear."

Now he saw it - Wing's master plan. Setting up the Yakuza for all of this - although admittedly they did blow up the joint - and letting the remains of the Dragon take revenge on them, sparing the Triad. Not only would the Three Dragons fracture, but the Triad would come out of it stronger than ever. He was certainly a calculating bastard; he missed his calling in politics. "Damn."

"Are you really that surprised?"

"No. But you coulda told me you were planning' on killin' him the whole time."

"What, and spoil the surprise?" He blew out a plume of smoke, and said, "So what's in Palo Alto? Do you require assistance?"

"No, not yet. But I could use a lift outta here 'fore the fire department comes."

"Is that the favor?"

He grunted humorously. "You wish."

"Well, who doesn't want to get off cheap, Mr. Yashida?"

Another point for him. He really had missed that career in politics.

* * *

15

Celia ended up staying with him, but they didn't have sex, which was a little personally depressing. But he knew he'd feel bad if he suspected he took advantage of a frightened woman. And she was very scared; she even asked him to stay with her, otherwise she'd never get any sleep. So they shared a bed but never had sex, and he hoped she appreciated how excruciating that was for him.

Once he got past his lust - which was always more difficult than it seemed - he understood how deeply freaked out she was by what she saw. She clung to him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling over the edge of a cliff. She didn't want to talk about it any further, and he knew not to press. He just tried to pretend he wasn't enjoying the warmth of her body or the smell of her hair as much as he actually was.

Somehow he slept, but not for long, as he was woken up by the smell of fear.

It was Celia, who was also twitching slightly, and making small, incoherent noises in the base of her throat. Nightmare, and a bad one. "Ceel," he said quietly, shaking her shoulder gently. It was near dawn, the birds twittering outside in the trees, calling up the sun. She still seemed locked in whatever scenario she was living out, so he shook her a little more firmly, and said in a louder voice, "Celia, wake up."

Finally she jolted awake, looking up at him with fear engorged pupils, and it seemed for a moment that she had no idea who he was. Then the pieces seemed to click into place, and she asked, "What did I do?"

"What?"

"Did I -" she seemed to be getting her wits together now, regaining full awareness. "Did I say something? Scream?"

"No, but you ... you were having a nightmare, I can tell you that."

She sighed and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hands as she sat up. Just from her reaction - did I do something? - he wondered if she had lots of nightmares. "This happen a lot?"

She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him, clad in the same relatively shapeless dress she wore yesterday. "It's ... sporadic. I ... it was about my sister."

"Your sister?" He sat up, desperately wanting to touch her and yet not daring to. "I didn't know you had a sister."

"Yes. She was always stronger than me, braver than me ... sometimes so much she scared me, you know?"

He didn't really, but he decided not to say that. "Where is she now?"

She shook her head and her shoulders slumped, letting him know he had asked absolutely the wrong thing. "I don't know. One day she just ... she disappeared. And I think it was my fault."

"How could it be your fault?"

She paused for a long time before she said, "I got so mad at her. I was tired of living in her shadow, and I told her I never wanted to see her again. And I never have."

Finally he allowed himself to touch her, placing a hand on her shoulder, and she almost jumped out of her skin. "Kids say a lot of things. I doubt she'd take it so seriously as to drop out of your life forever."

"Oh, you don't know her," she said, with a small, sad laugh. "She was so stubborn." There was another pause, long and morose, before she added, "I wish she was here."

She sagged back against him, and he held her once more, not sure what he should say. Except he was sure she had once told him she was an only child. So did she mean a half-sister, or had she lied because thinking about her sister had been too painful? Or was she simply lying? But why? She seemed genuinely distraught, so if she had been lying, it was probably about being an only child.

Yet his mind had settled on the "but why?" question, and refused to let it go. He suddenly began to wonder if he really knew Celia at all.

* * *

As soon as Celia left for Gus's, he forced himself to clean up, get dressed, and hike up to Joshua's place, abandoning thoughts of her for now. He wasn't sure if he actually loved her or not, but the idea that he knew even less about her than he ever realized bothered him greatly. Could she know she was often the only bright spot in his day, the only thing that kept him from abandoning living around people? It was unfair, because he put way too many expectations on her without her even knowing it - how could she ever live it to the woman he preferred to think she was? That was the problem with fantasy versus reality - reality always won, no matter how much worse it actually turned out to be.

Just like him, Josh had put his house far away from everyone else's, only his was hidden among the sheltering pines on the slope above town. It wasn't too deep inside the woods, just enough so that he could hide from plain sight.

Logan was just able to make out the cabin when he realized something was wrong. He smelled no smoke, and Josh usually always had a fire going, unless it was summer - it was his main heat source. Logan had grown so accustomed to the crisp smell of wood smoke drifting down from Joshua's cabin that he hardly even noticed it anymore. Except now, of course, when it was gone.

He paused and listened hard, opening up all his sense, letting them overwhelm him with details. There was rustling inside the cabin, someone was there ... but was it Josh?

Suddenly he had a very bad feeling about this.


	12. Part 12

He approached the cabin cautiously, ready to fight, and noticed the door to Josh's small "smokehouse", where Josh would sometime cure meat for the winter months, was ajar. He'd never seen that before - he sealed that place up tight, to keep out predators. It didn't look like there was anything in there either.

He smelled lots of fall here, the slow die off of leaves and their decomposition into the undergrowth, many animals and the lingering odors of the smokehouse, but no new Humans, no one but Joshua. He decided to risk it and shouted, "Josh!"

The noises inside the house died, as if someone inside froze. He waited for more, maybe a violent response, but nothing happened. "Josh!" He repeated, continuing his approach to the house.

"Go away!" A man finally shouted back. Joshua, for sure.

He walked up to the door with more confidence, relatively sure Josh wasn't going to shoot him, and when he opened it, Joshua emerged from the back bedroom, holding what looked like a rolled up blanket in his arms. "Get out of here Woods," he spat angrily. "I am not going with him!"

He didn't know which was more puzzling - his rage or his statement. "Going with who?"

Joshua's brown eyes narrowed to angry slits, his scowl accentuating the lines on his leathery tan face. "Don't you dare play dumb with me, Sheriff. I know a g-man when I see one, and I'm not going back to Ottawa. I'm leavin', but so help me, if you tell him, I'll -"

"What? Kill me?" He interrupted, with equal force. Okay, now he knew why Josh was theoretically packing up - he'd seen Malloy in town. And if Josh had identified Malloy as easily as he had, that meant he had had some association with them in the past. How? He'd never heard it mentioned that Josh had anything to do with government work or service, which pretty much left one possibility open.

Josh's eyes widened slightly at the accusation, but remained hard, glittering like diamonds. "Is that what you heard, huh? Is that what he told you?"

"He wasn't here about you. What is it that could be told about you, Josh?"

"Bullshit. I'm not an idiot, and I know he wasn't here 'cause he had a flat tire -"

"He was here about me," he interrupted, letting his own anger show. "Do you think you're the only one with secrets, Cloud? If it wasn't for our secrets, none of us would even be here." He'd already started parsing smells, and he hadn't smelled pond mud or blood, and since it was so dusty in here it was taking all his willpower not to sneeze, he knew Josh hadn't been on a cleaning binge as of late. And he hadn't smelled any outside either, so unless he spent his time drying off in the woods - a possibility; Josh was quite the woodsman- he was not his man.

But his angry resentment mixed with guilt was not a reaction working in his favor, nor was the fact that he had had clearly packed up most of his belongings. Still, he reeked of sour sweat, the booze from last night still oozing through his pores. Being drunk wouldn't be good for his alibi, but being hung over might be, because a hung over man was barely capable of functioning.

Josh glared at him, and Logan glared right back, neither of them giving an inch. He could see him seething behind his eyes, so angry and scared he was about to lash out at anything to make himself feel better. And while Logan had to admit to himself part of him was just itching to vent some frustration, this wasn't the way to do it. "You do not want to start something with me," he told Josh through gritted teeth. "I don't care how tough you think you are - you won't finish it."

"Oh really, white man? You think I'm that easy to beat?"

"No. I just know that I'm not." It wasn't helping, so he decided to throw him for a loop that would either infuriate him further or throw him off completely. "Did you kill those men?"

His eyes widened, and he took a step back in shock. "Men? What, who have they accused me of killing now?"

Oh great. "You're wanted on a murder rap?"

"Like you didn't know. And it was an accident anyways! I told 'em that, but do they believe me? He attacked me, I defended myself. But would they believe me? No. The guy was white, I'm not, so I must be to blame."

"I wasn't asking about your past, Josh. I was asking about Camp Baker."

He looked horrified and offended, and took a step back, as if he was so appalled he didn't trust himself to be near him. "What the fuck ..? They were killed? And you think I did it?" He sneered, enraged that he was getting blamed for this.

"No, I don't. But if you know of anyone who had a grudge -"

"The fucking g-man thinks I did it, huh? Are they framin' me for that?"

"As I told you, he was here for me, not you. I'm asking."

He turned away with a disgusted snort, and stomped off, continuing to pack. "You fucking asshole. You're no better than the rest of 'em."

"I never claimed to be." He followed him after a moment, when it became obvious he wasn't going to hurry back, and besides, he needed to make sure he wasn't going for his rifle.

Joshua was packing up, shoving the blanket in a knapsack on his bed. He didn't look up, but he must have known he was there, as he started muttering angrily, "You think you know what it's like for me, but you don't. Judge all you want, but you have no idea what's it's like to be different from everybody else."

He willed himself not to laugh. "Oh, I don't know about that."

"Well, I do. And I don't need any shit from you." Finally he looked up from his violent packing, and snapped, "Are you gonna arrest me or not?"

"Should I?"

He scowled at him. "If you're just gonna be a smart ass -"

"Tell me where you were the night before last."

His glare returned, acidic and hard. "Where was I? Here, drinking myself stupid."

"I don't suppose you have any witnesses that can corroborate this?"

His expression became even more sour, which didn't seem possible. "No. But I didn't kill them." He then threw out his arms with a noise of disgust. "Oh, what the fuck does it matter? Yer all gonna believe what you want anyways, so -"

"I believe you," he interrupted.

Joshua's look remained sharp and sarcastic. "Uh huh. You remember you need two people to play good cop/ bad cop, right?"

"I'm serious." And he was. There was no circumstantial evidence, nothing suspicious. Was he angry, scared? Sure, but mostly of cops, and the idea of them. He had a bad temper and a drinking problem, but he was not a psychopath, and considering the amount of sour booze sweat oozing out of him, he must have been on a days long bender, which would mean he was probably incapacitated, unable to walk straight, not to mention able to kill several loggers, then clean up after himself.

But he was an admitted wanted killer. He wouldn't cease being a peripheral suspect until a killer was actually caught, so no wonder he was eager to go. "But I have to ask you to stay here until I can figure this out."

He scoffed. "Yeah, so you can arrest me when you run out of ideas."

"No, that's not gonna happen."

"The fed -"

"Is my responsibility, not yours. Don't worry about him, he's mine to deal with."

Josh tossed his bag to the far side of the bed, and fixed him with a sour, suspicious look. "And I'm supposed to believe this why?"

Logan just shrugged. "'Cause I've never done anything to hurt you? And I'm not sure it's all that safe out in the woods right now."

"I know how to handle bears."

"I didn't mean them. I meant whoever could take out everyone in Camp Baker."

He grimaced, but still didn't seem convinced. "I can take care of myself."

"And they couldn't?"

Before Josh could even attempt to bluff his way past that one, they both heard, distant but clear, a woman scream.

Logan bolted to the door, listening hard, and Josh followed, lurking behind his shoulder. "It came from beyond the woods," Logan said, sniffing the wind. It didn't reveal anything, although, judging from its direction, the scream probably came from town. Shit.

"Should I get my gun?" Josh asked, sounding tense.

"Sure," he said, and left him to it while he started running towards town. What was going on now?

He just hoped no one else was dead.

* * *

16

The jolt of the car's sudden stop woke him up out of his healing stupor.

Logan rubbed his eyes and sat up, while the driver that Wing got for him, Chu, made quizzical noises and scanned the web pages currently displayed on his cell phone. "Is there a problem?" Logan finally asked, scraping itchy dried blood off his face.

"Huh. I guess not, if MapQuest's right. The place is down there." He pointed out the windshield, down the darkened street, where Logan could make out almost nothing in the soft lavender - pink light of early dawn except a hulking shape with a roof that was pointed, but in a way that suggested it was an accident. "Sure you don't want to go right there?"

"I'll walk. I need the exercise," he said, opening the back door and getting out. He told Chu he wanted to be dropped off a lock from this "Saint Albans" place, as he wished to approach on foot. He figured with a name like that, it was one of three things - a hospital, a church, a Catholic school. Church seemed to have been the winner of that sweepstakes.

When Chu didn't immediately drive off, Logan looked back in annoyance and waved him off. He frown, but as a Triad wheel man, he knew his was not to reason why, his was just to fucking drive. The Lexus glided away from the curb and sped off towards the better part of Palo Alto, the engine a low murmur fading in the distance.

The block felt wrong, of course. This early in the morning you expected the quiet, you expected everything to be shut up tight, but the cinderblock buildings filling this dead end street looked like façades on a movie set, empty shells hastily propped up to give the impression of permanence and habitation. Which was possible, and demons and mobsters had that much in common - there was little you could put past them.

As for the church that anchored the block like the physical manifestation of a black hole, it was a burnt out hulk; a ruin that hadn't quite collapsed in on itself yet. Where the windows were supposed to be were planks of plywood, and whatever color it was on the outside, it was charcoal now, as was most of the grass in front of it. It looked firebombed.

But it wasn't recent. The smell of burnt wood and greenery was so old it was virtually stale, nearly overpowered by the more recent scent of demon. It seemed like an odd place to set up, but again, demons and their sense of humor.

He found his mind wandering in spite of circumstances. Now that Farik, leader of the Dragons was (presumably) dead, what now? The demons might indeed be pissed off enough to go after the Yakuza, who could certainly hold their own, but there would be a lot of fatalities in the ensuing gang war, and he could see the Triad cleverly exploiting it for their own gain. But the problem was Farik must have had some way to keep the Lamias in line, keep them on task - possessing and replacing key members of various other gangs, pulling them in line. As far as a power play went, it was perfect. Except now the lamias could do whatever they wanted, and had no script to stick to. There was nothing to stop them at all from spreading far and wide, using the vehicle of anodyne as their ticket to world domination.

Frankly, they could have the world. It was such a fucked up mess he couldn't see demons doing that much worse. But this killing people for snacks, leaving them as dried out husks, wasn't exactly a good start. He had to put a stop to it before it got even bloodier than it was now, and right now it was pretty fucking bad. Would killing the queen solve the problem? Could he even kill the queen? After all, Lorne wasn't able to tell him how specifically you could kill a Lamia - he figured you just killed the host body, but he didn't honestly know. He was just going to have to wing it. Why was he always getting in these situations where he had to wing it?

And now that he thought of it, where were the demons? He had no sense of being watched, but he must have known he was here. So why weren't they attacking? Did they think he was just another Human? Or was the queen so sure of her power and position that she didn't even care who came after her, if anyone did? That was fine with him; the cocky were fun to take down.

He was almost afraid to open the door, fearing it would crumble to cinders, but he shoved it open carefully, getting soot on his hand. Some ashes salted down from the top of the jamb, but somehow the burnt thing managed to remain intact.

Most of the roof was gone, save for the edges and most of the spire, which was why the roof looked so strange. The center of the church seemed to have a massive skylight, roughly the size and shape of a 747 fuselage. There were no pews, just the charred remains of a few corners, and the altar looked like black mound, like someone had been buried beneath it in a volcanic eruption. In the center of the aisle - or where he imagined it used to be - was a small pool of water that looked pinkish in the early morning light.

Wait a minute - no, it was actually pink. The smell of anodyne was almost overwhelming, and he realized it was like an uncovered well of the stuff. He thought it was synthesized somehow - did it actually come from the ground, like oil? Or was this just a massive spill?

"Oh, my god," a slightly effeminate male voice sneered. Logan looked up sharply, and saw, standing on the remains of the alter, a painfully thin, frighteningly pale young man with a gleaming bald scalp and a tarnished brass eyebrow ring, and the general overall countenance of a junkie one hit away from a fatal overdose. Except for his eyes, of course, which glowed an ominous neon pink. "The Powers are really hard up nowadays, aren't they?"

He arched an eyebrow at him, trying hard not to snicker. The stud in his nose looked pink too. "You're the queen?" He had been expecting the queen to take residence in a female body, but didn't it make more sense for her to take residence in a man? Everybody would be looking for a woman. Misdirection was a handy tool.

"You're too late, you know," he/she said, gesturing at the far wall in a way that suggested he/she meant the outside world. "We are the new fad, the new drug, the latest hip high. We'll be everywhere you go, for now and until the end of time." He/she paused briefly. "Which, by my calculation, should be in three months."

"You need a distributor, don't you?"

The man's Pepto-Bismol eyes flashed with annoyance. "What does that mean?"

"If the Yakuza and the Triad aren't there to act as middlemen and traffickers, how will you get it out there? Can't exactly sell it in Ralph's, can you?"

"We own them."

Logan was aware that more demons and Lamias had grown out of the woodwork, and he was being slowly surrounded by them. Right now there was four behind him, some exceptionally brawny specimens that could have been weightlifters or bouncers, but the most troubling things was a flickering shadow out of the corner of his eye. Was it a wraith? It never seemed to solidify into anything, and the smell of smoke seemed to intensify in that direction. "Newsflash, your highness - it's all gone to shit. As of now, the Dragons have lost their leader, and are probably going after the Yakuza as we speak. The Three Dragons is history, the alliance has fractured, and you're next."

He/she smiled, but it was an awful thing to see, leering and hard, an upper lip arch away from a full blown sneer or a baring of the teeth. "Is that right? There are other gangs, other methods of distribution."

"And how do you think you'll do that when you're dead?"

The smile became a full blown sneer now, ugly on his/her skeletal face. "I'm not the dead man here."

The shadow that kept flickering in and out solidified suddenly, and before he could react it slammed into his back full force, clinging to him like an alien face hugger, and sending him face first into the pool of anodyne. Before he could jump back up, he felt even more weight press down on his legs, his back, and someone's meaty hand tangled in his hair and shoved him down into the pool of narcotics.

Oh shit. Well, at least if he drowned in anodyne, he wouldn't feel it.


	13. Part 13

They were holding him down pretty good, but it felt like they only had one strong guy each on his arms, which might have been the weakness. He struggled a lot with the lower half of his body, getting them to bear down a lot on his legs, shifting their focus, and then popped his claws. His only hope there was someone was startled enough to ease up for a second.

Someone was - the guy holding down his left arm. (It was possible he was in so close he nicked him when they came out.) The second pressure eased up he lashed out blindly on his left, cutting into something, and in the resulting scrum he got his right arm free and slashed into the arm of the man holding his head under the anodyne.

Something plopped into the water as Logan shoved himself up, gasping for breath, aware now that someone was screaming, "My arm! My fucking arm!" Oh yeah, he was going to remember to weep later for him.

A shadow moved in from the right and he slashed out blindly, on his knees but about to jump up to his feet, when the Queen said, "Wait! Give it a second to sink in."

An instruction to his/her people, not him. What the fuck did that mean? But then he noticed the strange taste of anodyne in his mouth - like dirt and copper, thyme and iron - and realized they weren't necessarily trying to drown him, just give him a major overdose of bliss.

But it didn't work, wouldn't work. Marc had already given him anodyne back in Hong Kong. As much as he wanted to feel it again, he wouldn't - his system had adapted, and killed it before it could sink its chemical claws in.

They didn't know that.

He let himself relax, and tried had to remember what being on anodyne was like. The memory was almost painful, simply because it had felt so good. No pain, no fear, no remorse - nothing but a kind of freedom of the soul that you just knew had to be a lie, but was still irresistible. He let his claws retract into his hands and pretended to be mildly startled by it, but he made sure to react slowly, a beat too late, like the terminally sleepy - or the blissfully stoned. "Wh-what ..?" He began, swaying slightly on his knees.

He/she smiled at him, baring smoke stained teeth and bloodless gums, and waved a skeletally thin hand to back his/her people off. Logan idly noticed a big, meaty arm, from the elbow joint down, bobbing in the pool of anodyne. "Don't you feel silly for fighting it now? Why do you stupid meatbags fight against peace anyways? Are you afraid you'll realize what an evolutionary dead end you really are?"

There was a noise outside, kind of like a muffled thud, and he noticed that thing again, flickering in and out of his vision. The queen scowled, and said, "Go see what that is."

Most of the bodyguards, including that shadow thing, left the burnt out husk of the church. Logan remained where he was, pretending to be blissed out, biding his time. It was especially hard because he hated the thing, and mostly he hated it because he could never feel that again. He could never feel what it was like to be rid of everything, to wash clean the stains of his soul, and he resented this thing for making it and giving him just the one taste, never to have it again.

Was it wrong to want to be insensate, to not feel - or at least not feel bad - ever again? Yes it was, and he knew it, but it didn't stop him from wanting it so bad he could feel it like a cramp in his stomach, taste it like last night's beer.

The Buddhists were right: desire was the source of all suffering. Especially when it was desire for something you could never have.

"Did you bring some friends along?" He/she asked.

"I don't have any friends," he replied, keeping his words measured and soft, his eyes half-lidded and tired. The first thing a good undercover operative learned was how to pretend at an expert level, fill the roll that other people expected of you. _(...Now how the fuck did he know that..?) _"What have you done to me?"

"Just gave you a taste of what you were fighting against. Did the Powers not tell you what it was I was really distributing? You see, that's why everybody wants it." He started walking slowly towards him, almost slinking like a cat, a move far too graceful for such a painfully bony and wasted frame. "You want it too, don't you?"

"Yes." And that was the truth, one so embarrassingly powerful a tear spilled from his eye and ran down his cheek. He wanted to wipe it away before he/she could see it, but he couldn't - a blissed out shell wouldn't move that fast.

The queen saw it and his/her grin became wider, more self-satisfied and predatory, and it took all of Logan's strength to swallow back the rage and self-loathing that was threatening to explode from within him. He felt so hot and tight he thought his skin might split open like a sausage casing. "No shame, my poor messenger. The Powers would never give you something like this. They don't care about the suffering of your kind. You know that now, don't you?"

"Yes." He knew it all along, but why split hairs?

There were more thuds outside, and a few curses. The queen looked towards the far wall and scowled, and they both heard faintly, distantly, "I know I fit the dress code. So why don't you let me in?" The voice was slurred, a drunk who was obviously confused ... but didn't he sound familiar?

The queen continued to frown, but was simply annoyed, and quickly turned his/her attention back to him. "You're an unusual specimen; I can see why the Powers chose you, in spite of your other limitations. You must be in so much pain. The Powers pick those who are in pain, just like demons do. Humans are the middle ground in a very long, very old power struggle; you're food or you're territory. It's not your fault." He/she splayed a pale, bony hand on his/her chest, and adopted the look of a politician who claimed he was "compassionate". "I saved this creature from an awful fate. His name was Dell, and he was going to die of some disease in his blood. Can you believe that? In some Humans, your own systems eat themselves. That alone should tell you how deficient your species is. And I can save you from that fate."

Oh sure. Kill him and use his body. "You can?"

"Yes. I'm much more powerful than my minions. Did they tell you that? I bet they left that out." He/she swept his/her hand away from its chest, and took Logan in with the odd gesture. That's when he felt, starting in his mind and quickly swelling outward, a wave of pleasure that was as devastating and paralyzing as any pain. "But power has more uses than just as weapons of war, don't you think?"

There was more noise outside, it sounded like a skirmish, and it distracted the queen enough that the unrelenting, high intensity pleasure abated, letting him breathe. "Ren, what the hell is going on out there?"

Ren? The cartoon dog? He almost laughed, but was too enervated by the intensity of the pleasure to do much more than pant.

"Uh, some drunk asshole thinks this is a club or something," a voice said, crackled by the radio.

The queen's thin, bloodless lips twisted in disgust. "Just get rid of him, jack off. Jesus!" He shook his head, and as soon as the radio died, he/she sneered, "Help these days. God, I swear they'll all retarded."

He hoped the queen knew how much it was killing him not to be able to make one sarcastic comment.

The queen fixed him with a hard gaze, as if wondering if he was faking. "You know nothing of what's going on outside?"

"No. I came alone. I was sure I could handle you by myself." He knew from his brief experience with it that anodyne acted as a sort of truth serum; you just felt no desire to lie. When you had no fear, there was no reason to conceal anything.

That made the queen laugh. "Are you sure you can now?"

"No," he lied.

This was what he/she both wanted and expected to hear. The queen smirked smugly, crossing deathly thin arms across his/her sunken chest, and assumed a posture of superiority. "I can do something for you the Powers would never do. I can make you feel this way all the time. Now I know you'd like that." He continued gliding down the aisle towards him, avoiding the bigger chunks of charred detritus. "Wouldn't you like to serve me instead?"

It was then that they heard the roar of an accelerating engine, and suddenly a car smashed into the front wall of the church, collapsing part of it and sending up a huge plume of ash. It was pure reflex that Logan ducked some of the flying debris, and out of the corner of his eye he saw something misshapen and oily hit the charcoal smear of the second aisle, and he noticed it wasn't humanoid, but something with lots of floppy appendages. The shadow thing? Once it stopped rolling from the impact, it seemed in no hurry to get up, or otherwise move.

The queen's face flushed pink with rage as he/ she stomped towards the car - a car painted a bright and unfortunate teal. Oh no. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" He/she held out his/her hand, as if trying to use powers on the driver, but quickly gave up. They probably only worked on a being with a specific type of brain, one that Thrak just didn't have being a big pile of goo. "Idiot Ugg demon. What the fuck are you doing driving anyways?"

There was a familiar noise outside, a muffled "whoomph", and Logan sighed inwardly, aware that it was time to give up the charade before everybody got themselves killed. Had he asked for an entourage?

There was a sickening squelching noise as Thrak started oozing out the open window and seams of the closed door like an overflow of mucus, and the queen snapped at her subjects, "What the fuck is going on out there? Ren? Ren?!"

Logan noticed the queen was making a "rise" gesture with his/her hand, so he stood up, still moving slowly and drunkenly, not quite ready to give up the pretense just yet.

The Queen started edging out the hole that Thrak's cab had made in in the shell of the church, and Thrak gathered himself in a big wet pile and shot across the sooty floor with surprising speed, spreading out like a spill of water before plopping moistly into the pool of anodyne. The noise made his/her head snapped around, and anger flared like a pink sun in its eyes as it started stomping back towards the pool. "No! Get the hell out of there, you amorphous freak!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Logan noticed Thrak was turning pink and swelling up to fill the hole. Was he absorbing the anodyne like a sponge? It sure looked like it. Would he o.d. on it, or as a demon would it not affect him at all? He suddenly remembered Lorne implying that Ugg demons had very stupid powers, and he wondered if this was it - absorbing liquids. That would be very stupid, and not very useful, unless you were in a drinking contest, or in a situation just like this one.

The Queen started to walk right by him, not even giving him a second glance. "I will have you squeezed dry, you meddling fucker. Don't you think -"

Logan shot out a fist, like he was throwing a punch, and at the last second popped his claws, which sliced straight through the top of the Queen's skull, skewering the brain. He/she froze, like a puppet with tangled strings. "Did I mention I was immune to most drugs? Some evolutionary dead end, huh?" He then ripped through, taking the top half of his skull and cranium off like it was the top of a soft boiled egg.

The Queen collapsed to his/her knees, and then pitched forward bonelessly, blood and brain fluids spilling on the floor like Thrak previously, but never gathering itself together again. He though he saw a brief shimmer of pink in the air like an escaping gas, but he wasn't sure.

Thrak, pink and swollen up like a blood sated tick, made another gravelly gargling noise, and Rags "whoomped" into existence about five feet away from him. "Ya got 'im? Cool b -" He then saw what was left of the Queen's host, and turned around and barfed up a breakfast of what appeared to be burritos and daiquiris. He reeked of so much alcohol Logan's eyes were watering.

"Oh good, we're done here?" Lorne slurred, stumbling in the hole in the wall. He was holding a spill proof mug that said "Welcome to Hollywood!" on the front, and smelled like it was full of rum. Lorne loitered around the hood of the cab, smart enough to not come any closer.

Logan snickered, shaking his head. The drunken cavalry to the rescue, as long as they could focus and stand up straight. "Why the hell are you guys here?

"I saw what was gonna happen, my hirsute hombre, and I thought we could maybe lend a hand," Lorne replied, making vague gestures with his mug. It looked like he was stirring an invisible bowl of batter.

"What, I couldn't handle this?"

"No, you could, but I thought ... well, we could hasten things up a bit." He didn't like that hesitation; Lorne wasn't telling him something. "Besides, Angelcakes had so few friends, I figured it was the least I could do to help one out. He'll appreciate it if he comes back."

What a revealing choice of words. "He's not coming back, is he?"

Some of the drunken glaze in Lorne's eyes faded, and he frowned slightly, wrinkles bunching up around his horns. "I dunno. But traditionally, no one walks away from a battle with the big cheeses, and I haven't seen him forever. If I try, I get a ... black spot. It's like he's not on the map anymore. Any map."

Now he recalled Dru's words: _"...He's fading away in the distance, but I know he's still there...." _and knew she must have been referring to Angel. He was fading away from everybody who had even a smidgen of psychic ability. That led him to wonder if Lorne was trying to save him from something similar, or future employment by the Powers.

Rags, done barfing for the moment, had teleported himself back by Lorne, to avoid looking at the body head on anymore. But he really didn't look good. "Can we jus' get outta 'ere now? I'm losin' my buzz."

Logan pointed at the corpse. "Is it dead?"

Lorne snorted, and almost spilled his drink. "Uh, yeah, I'm gonna bet having your brains spill out your head is fatal, even for a Lamia queen."

Rags turned yellowish again, slapping a hand over his mouth. Did he have anything left to throw up? He had already left quite a pile.

Thrak oozed across the floor, gargling out something that sounded sober but slightly ticked off. He was still pink, and twice his normal size.

"He doesn't appreciate the fact that you left an arm in there," Lorne told him, by way of translating.

Logan could only snort as he wiped the tears away from his eyes. Boy, who had been hitting the rotgut like cheap cologne? "Life's a bitch, phlegm boy."

Next to this group, the X-Men suddenly looked really, really good.

17

By the time he helped Rags back up to his place (and he needed the help - he was wavering like he was on the deck of a storm tossed ship), the sun was out in all its blinding glory, and it was already well past eighty degrees. Rags was groaning like his eyes were going to fall out of their sockets, and considering how much he'd had to drink, Logan thought it was more likely he'd burst into flames.

Back at the car, Lorne was slumped in the passenger seat, cradling his head like it was a bomb that could detonate any second, and Thrak was passed out on the back seat, looking like someone had thrown up their body weight in pink jello. (He was immune to the effects of anodyne, but not, it seems, to a binge that included slippery nipples, drunken leprechauns, and banana daiquiris. Could Ugg demons barf? Because if they could, Thrak would probably be driving the porcelain bus all day. He was making an odd noise, like water half-heartedly gurgling down a plugged drain, but Lorne said that was normal snoring for him.

Because he was the sober one, Logan was driving. And now that Rags was home, he just had to drop Lorne off at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and then drive back to West Hollywood, where Thrak apparently lived. Ironically, Logan would be forced to walk back to his motel, but it wasn't that far from Thrak's.

As he started the car, which started with a cough and groan, like it too was hung over, Logan asked, "So why come for me? If I could handle it, why bother?" Lorne was in a strange space, somewhere between drunk and hung over, and if he was going to be even close to honest to him, it was now or never.

Lorne groaned, and rested his head against the passenger window, eyes tightly closed. "It was gonna hurt, big guy. Didn't hafta."

"I can take pain."

He scoffed, then grimaced at the pain of the gesture. "I know that. Isn't that one of your mutant powers? You're so used to pain, it's an annoyance; the best it can do is slow you down. I wish I had that now, I'm tellin' you - the jackhammers are starting to work inside the old noggin."

"So why do it if you knew it didn't matter if I was hurt or not?"

"Not that kind of pain, amigo. Not physical. It was the kind that really hurts you."

That didn't sound good. "What was she going to do to me?"

"I don't know, champ. I didn't want to know the details at all, okay? I just knew this victory was gonna hurt you, so I thought we could help you cut to the chase. I didn't mean that literally, but hey, that's Lalaland for you." He rubbed the skin around his left horn, like it was hurting him or something, and then muttered, "I just don't know how you do it."

"Do what?"

He waved a hand at the windshield. "This, all of this. I just wasn't cut out for it, you know, this hero stuff." He lapsed into silence again, and Logan had steered them out into the insane Los Angeles traffic when he said suddenly, "I knew what he was gonna do."

Logan glanced at him, pretty sure he wasn't talking about the queen's host. "Who?"

Lorne shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and started to pat the pockets of his loud jacket as if looking for smokes. "Lindsay. Angel sent me off with him, and asked me to take care of him once we were done with our assignment, as he was afraid of what Lindsay might do without him around to ride herd on him. I know I agreed to, but I couldn't you know?" Logan had no idea what he was talking about - who the hell was Lindsay? - but he just nodded, as this was clearly something that Lorne wanted to get off his chest. "But then he sang. We were on our way, he was driving, and he turned on the radio to fill the awkward silence. A song he liked came on, and he sang a line or two under his breath until he remembered I was in the car, but it was too late. Angel was more right than he would ever know.

"In that moment, I saw everything. Angel was gone, Wesley was dead, and Lindsay was alone with a head full of bad ju-ju and a thirst for power. He would cut a deal with an evil hellgod, and cast a spell that would kill a thousand people and demons in the Los Angeles area, the street would run Technicolor with blood, and that massive sacrifice would be enough to open a portal between here and there. He would be the most powerful Human on the planet in no time, and he would carve the Earth up in bloody slices if it got him more power, more vengeance against a humanity and a demon community that he felt had always done him wrong. I knew then if I didn't kill him, thousands of deaths would be on my hands." Tears were spilling from his ruby eyes, running down his green scaled face, but he found what he had been looking for - his sunglasses - and slipped them on. "So I did it - I killed him. And it bothers me, even though it didn't bother me that much at the moment; after all, I knew what he was planning to do. No, what bothered me the most was the knowledge that I was the only one who walked away. In that car with crazy Lindsay, I realized Angel had deliberately sent me away, out of the worst of it. He wanted at least one of us to walk away ... and for some reason, he chose me. Even though he knew I'd hate him forever for putting me in the position of killing someone, he picked me to live. I don't understand why. I don't even understand how anyone could even make that decision."

"You do what you gotta do," he told him with a shrug, aware that was a less than satisfying answer. He didn't know what to say to him, or what Angel had actually known or thought at the time; no clue. What could you say that would assuage survivor's guilt? But was that the real reason why he decided to help him? Some kind of obscure attempt to even the scales between him and Angel?

Awkward silence settled in, and he wondered if humor would help. "Well, if it's anything, I'd have done the same thing. You're the worst fighter I've ever seen."

Lorne stared at him for a moment, then started laughing. "Yeah, I do suck, don't I? I'd have lasted less than five minutes."

"Does that include getting out of the car?"

"And getting in the car. All car related activities." He wiped the tears from his face and looked out the window, shoulders rounded in continued pain and defeat. "I can't help but feel guilty. Maybe I should keep fighting the good fight, even though I suck, because I'm the only one left."

"Do you think Angel thought, for a single moment, that you would? Did the Powers pick you as a proxy? I don't know how you got mixed up in all this, Lorne, but this never was your fight. Thank you for the help, but you're excused now. Go have a life, enjoy it for those of us who can't have one."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lorne staring at him. "You've given up on that already?"

"You saw some of my life, didn't you? Do you think anybody will let me stop fighting?"

He considered that, and in spite of the sunglasses, had the decency to look away. "No, I suppose not."

"So there. Leave the fighting to those of us who don't have a choice, and are damn good at it anyways.

"You and Angel must have been a real horror show fighting together."

He shrugged. "We each had strengths the other didn't. If they could get by him, they couldn't get by me, and vice versa." He paused before adding, "Sorry I wasn't there."

"It's okay, hombre. You had your own fight. There's no lack of fighting, is there?"

"No."

"Pity."

Logan didn't know what to say to that, except to agree, so he said nothing at all.

* * *

Once he got back to his stuffy motel room, where the air conditioner was issuing continuous death rattles as it struggled in vain against the heat of Southern California, a battle it was destined to lose, he realized he wanted a drink very badly.

He took a shower, washing off sweat and blood and the scent of hung over demons, but the desire for a beer still lingered. No bar was open yet, save for the Way Station, and he wasn't sure he wanted to risk that. He didn't feel like sleeping, and besides, it was too hot to do so.

Eventually he wandered off to the Way Station, taking a chance, and amazingly it paid off. Lau was tending bar, and he didn't say anything, just gave him a nod and poured him a beer. There were lots of demons in the place - well, it was off hours for many of them - and as a Human he earned lots of funny looks - so he took his beer to a back table, one on a far corner hidden by shadows. He listened carefully to various conversations in spite of the jukebox. He heard several songs that Bob had sung before, including that dark Afghan Whigs song which took on an ironically funny air in this place _("When you say/Now we got hell to pay/Don't worry baby, that's okay/I know the boss")._

The gang war was definitely on. The demon mob was in chaos, and they and the Yakuza were killing each other off already; he heard one spectacularly horned demon (it looked like he was wearing an elk's rack on his head) telling his friend there was already a massive killing down in Chinatown, and he had no idea how the "Hoo-mans" were going to survive this, being as outmatched as they were. But that just proved he didn't know how deadly and resourceful the Yakuza were. Wing was probably gloating somewhere, elated that his legacy would be the complete triumph of the Triad over their enemies.

He was on his third beer when he remembered he did have a bit of unfinished business. Two bits, actually, but he had to take them in sequence. He went up to the bar and asked Lau for a phone book, which he supplied without a single word. (You had to love a taciturn guy.) When he didn't find what he was looking for, he sensed someone looking over his shoulder, and glanced up, annoyed.

A blue haired woman with three eyes - two in the regular spots, the third between the two but a couple inches up, and all different colors (left one blue, right one red, middle one gold) - and six fingered hands with fingers that tapered like cat claws, smiled at him, revealing rows of serrated teeth. "Looking for something, sweetie?" Her voice was a velvet purr, laced with a rusty echo. Her skin was an odd color, a metallic bronze with an apple colored blush, and she smelled like Italian parsley with a hint of mulch. "I'm good at finding things. It's my gift."

"Is it? You do realize I'm a friend of Bob's, and if you try and kill me, he ain't gonna be happy with you."

She scowled and looked down at her glass of wine. "Fuck."

"Do you really think an ordinary Human would just wander into a bar like this?"

She shrugged bony shoulders. From the way they moved, he wondered if she had an extra joint. "It's the only one open."

"If you do want to help me, though, I'd appreciate it."

She gave him a slightly hopeful look with two of her three eyes. "How appreciative would you be?"

"You're not killing me. You're not even getting a nibble."

She scowled violently. "Damn it!"

At least demons were relatively consistent - you couldn't fault them there.

* * *

He didn't need the three eyed woman - whose name was Claudia, it turned out - to find one of his lingering problems. He just waited for nightfall and headed out, wandering the back alleys of L.A. until he can upon a homeless man who looked like he was sleeping in a doorway, but had in fact had his throat ripped out; he was just placed in a position meant to both conceal the body and amuse the killer. He caught a scent and followed it to a park, where he eventually came upon her beneath a weeping willow tree, feeding on a man who had been walking his dog. The dog, a German shepherd, had already had its throat ripped out and was laying on the grass, pink tongue lolling and eyes staring, killed so fast even it didn't seem to have believed it. "Hello Drusilla," he said, aware that sneaking up on her was not an option.

Her yellow eyes seemed to light up, and she dropped the man, an actor who never lived long enough to be more than a wannabe. She grinned at him with a mouthful of bloody, pointed teeth. "Nowhere man, I knew you'd show up." She started stroking her own cheek like she was petting the dog. "You want to play, don't you?"

"You can't stay here, Dru. I don't care where you go, but you were brought in 'cause of me, and you need to go now. I don't wanna kill you ... okay, that's a lie. I want to kill you."

She giggled like a little girl, which was extra disturbing considering she was still in vamp face. "I know, pet. But you can't. I know you, Weapon X." He flinched at the name, and she grinned in triumph. "I know every little thing that ever broke your heart - or you. Your heart is a bloody piece of meat that someone nailed to a table." She made a pleased "hmm" in the back of her throat, and said, "Daddy did that for me once."

He seriously didn't want to know. "You surprised me once. I felt it was my turn to pay that back."

"Surprise me? You can't -" Suddenly the smugly pleased look on her face died, and her head snapped around, first to the left, then to his right, as his surprise emerged from the shadows in the way that only vampires could.

"Hello-"

"-sister," The Sisters volleyed, approaching her on either side with big, empty grins on their faces.

Dru hissed like an angry cat, barring her fangs at both of them, and started backing up. According to the Sisters, Dru couldn't "read" them; their own weird psionic shit interfered with hers. Checkmate.

"Surprise," Logan said, giving her a cold, insincere smile.


	14. Part 14

"Long -"

"- time -"

"- no see," the Sisters chirped, getting subtly closer to Dru on either side while fanning out slightly. If she bolted, they would easily intercept, and just in case she got any ideas about running towards him, he popped the claws on his left hand.

"Okay, darlin', here's the deal - yer a crazy bitch, and if Angel made you that way, I shoulda kicked his ass for it. You did me a favor by offing Chin actually, as the Triad can now blame it on the Yakuza, so they're good with it. But I'm not gonna let you continue to kill people in this city, especially if it's my fault you're here. So here's your chance. Agree to leave now, mean it, and we don't kick your ass. Or, we kick your ass, dump you in a burlap sack, and toss you in the desert right before sunrise, giving you twenty minutes to find cover or become the Human torch, vampire variety. Choose."

Her eyes, still a brightly jaundiced yellow, narrowed to slits, and her upper lip curled back in a snarl. "You think you know what's going to happen, but you don't. Death doesn't like you."

He shrugged. "Ain't a news flash."

"Let's -"

"- kick -"

"- her ass -"

"- already," the Sisters insisted.

Dru turned her scalding gaze on them. "Treacherous children. You sold us out because you hated Daddy, and you never stopped."

"Blame -"

"- us -"

"- for choosing -"

"- the winning -"

"- side. Something you -"

"- never did, did -"

"- you sister?"

Dru snarled at them like an angry tiger, and the Sister on Dru's left charged, followed by the other on her right. But it was strange, because they weren't moving like one as always, but with an obvious delay, which made him curious. Were they changing tactics for Dru, or just not using their telepathy or whatever the fuck they had?

It wasn't immediately clear. Dru turned to meet the one on her left, giving her a backhand smash to the side of her face, but the second Sister went low and took Dru's legs out from beneath her with a nicely executed leg sweep, sending her falling on her ass in a flare of velvet skirts. The Sister who had taken her down then slammed one of her legs down on Dru's face, making an impact that would have knocked out a mortal being. But Dru was not mortal, and the battle was far from over.

Dru slashed out with her fingernails, catching her across the eyes, the Sister on the ground rolled away as Dru jumped back up to her feet, snarling with pain, blood dripping from a broken nose. The second Sister was waiting for her, though, and delivered a roundhouse kick that sent her slamming back against the trunk of the tree hard enough to cause leaves to come cascading down from the higher branches.

No one expected Dru to go quietly; if the Sisters were to be believed, it was not in her make up to go quietly at any time. So they told him to let them "soften Dru up" a bit before he moved in - they even said they'd give him an opening. But did he even want to get in the middle of undead chick fight? Truth be told, if the three of them turned on him en masse, he'd be so fucked it wouldn't be funny. Luckily, they seemed to have a history of antipathy, in spite of - or maybe because of - springing from the same general bloodline.

Dru caught a follow up kick, but the Sister was expecting that and jumped off the ground, kicking up with her other leg, breaking Dru's hold. She also managed to turn in air and land square on her feet only a meter away from Dru, a feat only possible for vampires, or a couple of martial artists turned stuntmen.

But Dru was ready for her, and with a frustrated grunt threw a punch of her own, that managed to connect straight with the Sisters' face, but even as she reeled back, the second Sister was there, nailing Dru in the gut with a solid kick that doubled her over, following up with a crushing knee to the face. Without her freaky powers, she was getting her ass kicked, and he felt kind of bad for her. Mainly because he wasn't helping do it. This was the woman who made him piss blood after all.

He retracted his claws, just because he didn't want to accidentally hurt the wrong vampire, and cautiously neared the fight, waiting for his opening. The Sister on Dru now was basically just pimp slapping her, more humiliating than honestly hurtful, and a deeply enraged Dru punched her in the throat, making her stumble back, and Dru growled as she started stalking towards her, ignoring the other Sister, who was simply standing by, not doing anything. Ah, must be his opening.

He charged in, not catching Dru's attention until it was too late, and punched her in the stomach, popping his claws at the last second and driving her into the tree, where his claws sunk deep. She let out a breathless scream, and looked at him with pain glazed eyes. "I could cut you in half," he snarled into her face. "It wouldn't kill you, but the Weirds and I could keep you around as a puppet. Think that would be fun, Drusilla?"

Up close, her yellow eyes and distorted face seemed even more inhuman. The blood running down her face from the cuts and her broken nose didn't humanize her in the least; the blood just didn't smell right. "This time, I'm keepin' my word and just hurtin' you. But if I ever see you again, it's dusting time. Got it?"

She glowered at him hatefully, eyes lambent with resentment, but then she gave him an ugly, gloating smile, as if she wasn't skewered on the end of his fist, but had him skewered instead. "Her name was Mariko," she said, with a mocking lilt to her voice.

In that moment he felt so angry he did want to slice her in half and then keep going, see if a vampire could live just as a head and a pair of shoulders. But instead he drew back his fist and punched her full force in the face, his rage and the adamantium combining to make it a vicious thing - he heard something crack on impact, but he knew he wasn't the one who was hurt. He retracted his claws from her stomach and she collapsed to the ground, unconscious for the moment, but he felt like he should keep going. He didn't relish hitting a woman, even a bloodthirsty demon like her, but he wanted to keep going, beat her to a bloody pulp, until she didn't resemble a humanoid anymore. How dare she say her name, use it like some kind of weapon.

"Now -"

"- that's -"

"- a punch." The Sisters mused.

He sighed and glanced at the pair of them, who had a bloody lip and some fingernail scratches to show for the fight, but not much else. "At what point in the fight could you have killed her if you'd wanted to?"

"Fifty -"

"- seconds -"

"- in. Dru -"

"- fights with -"

"- pure instinct, she -"

"- can't concentrate long -"

"- enough to put together -"

"- a coherent plan of -"

"- attack. She's very deadly because -"

"- most people expect some kind -"

"- of sense in a battle plan -"

"- and she has none. It's very -"

"- disorienting."

That made him give them a funny look. Were they joking? How could you tell with those deliberately blank eyes and empty smiles? "Like a couple of twins who habitually finish each others sentences?"

"Exactly," they said in unison.

His glance became a glare. "Oh good, you're branching into being smart asses. Would you just get the fucking bag already?"

That wasn't a joke. They bundled the unconscious Dru in a large sack - a body bag, actually, tres irony - and then wrapped her up tight with bungee cords on the outside, so she couldn't move her arms until they wanted her to. The Sisters decided to "soften her up, just in case", but Logan suspected they just enjoyed having an excuse to smack Dru around like a piñata. He let them, because she was a vampire (and not a "good" one or quasi-good one either), and it didn't matter, as Dru would heal, and the Sisters had no intention of killing her. He did believe they could have killed her whenever they wanted, because when it came down to it, the insanity was just part of an affectation for the Weirds - they were amazingly calculating, manipulative, and cunning. Dru was just a fucking nutcase. As vicious as a pissed off scorpion, but incapable of manipulating it for a greater gain. The Sisters estimation of her was spot on, as it would be, since they knew her from "back in the day". According to them, Angelus made Dru before he "made" Belinda, but Dru disliked them on sight, because she couldn't "read" them, and believed them to be bad luck. "And -"

"- Angelus -"

"- liked us -"

"- more because -"

"- we were far -"

"- more perspicacious than -"

"- she could ever be -"

"- and she was very -"

"- possessive of him because she -"

"- may have been infatuated with -"

"- Spike, but even she knew he -"

"- was a waste of space, which - "

"- Angelus wasn't."

He chuckled to himself. "Not big Spike fans, huh?"

"He -"

"- was -"

"- a moron -"

"- and his -"

"- poetry sucked."

He didn't ask. That fell into the category of stuff he just didn't want to know about.

He wanted to get Thrak's cab but couldn't, so he ended up trading in the motorcycle he got from Argenis in for a car, and just because the Yakuza had reminded him how neat they were to drive, he had Argenis get him a Jaguar, one far too nice for the likes of him. But Dru fit nicely in the trunk, and he left the Sisters in the city as he headed off for the desert. It shouldn't have taken that long, but Los Angeles traffic was as bad as New York's, which meant that most of the time he could have walked to his destination faster. But he was in no real hurry; there was a long time between now and sun up.

He'd already told the Sisters about his plan to hit the base in North Dakota, and of course they were in. It was a fight, and they didn't care about the who, what or why, just as long as they were allowed to break heads. And they could go nuts there as far as he was concerned.

When he could drive, traffic allowing, he did enjoy driving the car. It smelled new, was still in all likelihood stolen or somehow illegally acquired (well, Argenis was a fixer after all), and he liked not having to think about much of anything. He just listened to music, or when that got boring, NPR or the BBC London feed. When that got depressing, back to music. Given enough time it would drive him crazy, but he wasn't going to be doing this long enough.

He had timed it just about right, as he found a wonderfully remote spot of Death Valley in which to dump Dru. And while it was cooler than it surely had been, he could still feel stored up heat coming up off the sand in waves. It would be a miserable day out here; it was a shame vampires really didn't notice temperature extremes.

She was awake and pissed off when he pulled the body bag out of the trunk, "accidentally" hitting her head as he pulled her out. When he popped his claws she suddenly went very quiet, but he just sliced off the cords and told her, "Be careful opening the bag - you may need it for shelter from the sun."Then he heaved her, body bag and all, off the edge of a small cliff. She impacted the sand below with a dull thud, but remained cursing, so he knew she was fine. Really, he was being nicer to her than she ever deserved, and he had no idea why. So he felt bad because she was a nutter - was that his fault? Was a crazy vampire a good thing to have running around?

Well, if she lived, she'd be someone else's problem. If she showed up in L.A., she'd have her choice of facing the Sisters or Bob, and he was willing to bet that Dru wanted to avoid those confrontations, although she'd probably be better off with Bob. He might let her live, in some permutation or another - the Weirds would just rip her head off with their bare hands and be done with it.

On the drive back, he started to feel honestly weary, tired to the bone, and he wondered if he really wanted to risk sleep. He wished he could tell the Powers that he'd had enough, that he was done, but he couldn't. It was cowardly, he knew that, but he also knew he was on the verge of remembering something he probably didn't want to remember, something pretty damn bad. He still didn't understand how he could have ended up with the Organization, even if their sinister intent came along later.

But maybe he had just nailed it. He was a coward; something in him was a coward. And that weakness made him a lamb to the slaughter for them.

If that was true, he just didn't want to know. But it was too late to back out now.

* * *

18

By the time he got to town, he could already see the crowd forming around the Heller's place, and his stomach clenched and turned cold. Oh no - of all the places to hit ...

People cleared the way for him - well, he was the "Sheriff" after all - and he went around back to find Mimi Heller crouched down next to the prone figure of Bill Heller, her husband, who was bleeding copiously from the nose and ears, his head swelling up slightly on the left side, laying within meters of the barn. Doc Withers was kneeling on the opposite side of Bill, holding his wrist as if taking his pulse. Logan noted, not far away, a metal feed bucket that look crumpled inward and warped, with the slightest trace of blood and Bill's wispy gray hair sticking to the wet patch. "What the hell happened?" he asked, surreptitiously scenting the air. It was difficult, as there were so many people around, and the air was rife with horse manure, hay, and blood, with the lingering undertone of fear and pain and ... what was that? He smelled something familiar, but he couldn't place it - did he smell it at Camp Baker, or at the pond? Both?

"I don't know," Mimi said, her voice cracking with tears. "Bill took Matty out to feed and water the horses, and I was in the kitchen, putting up some green beans for the winter. I heard a ... noise. I can't describe it, it was just odd, and I called out back to see what was going on. There was no answer, so I came out, and I found him like this."

Attack Bill and leave? That seemed odd. But using something at hand - the feed bucket - followed the M.O. of the killer. "Matt? Where is he? Did he see what happened?"

Mimi looked up at him, tears spilling out of her pale gray eyes and lining her kind, grandmotherly face. "Matty's missing. I don't know where he is."

Holy shit. Maybe he ran away after Bill was attacked. "Matt!" He shouted, moving to the edge of the crowd. "Matt, you can come out now!"

There was no movement, no noise. And he noticed, at the far end of the paddock, two of the wooden slats that made up the fence were broken, and they weren't that way the last time he was here. He looked around, and spotted Mac's brother Gordy in the crowd, and motioned him out. He obeyed, as he was a big, good natured kid, who had absolutely no problem playing the "muscle man" when he had to. "Get every able bodied man in the village, tell them to grab any weapons they have, and start searching the woods. No one goes alone - I want everybody in groups of four. But no wild shooting - a seven year old boy is out there, and he may just be hiding. Think you can handle that?" He nodded tersely. "Go."

Gordy went off, followed by a couple of others who heard the instructions and wanted to grab their guns, and Logan went out the back of the paddock, over the broken fencing, trying to catch a scent in the air. The wind was currently against him, but the scent of Matt was still pretty fresh. Matt, and ... the other. That's all he could call it now.

Why abduct the boy? It didn't make sense, so he just had to assume Matt fled, and since he liked to play in the woods, he must have headed to it, thinking he could get lost there. And the killer followed. Not a wise decision, but actually it was, inadvertently: it was quite possible that, if the killer followed Matt into town, he'd have killed everyone he set his eye on. But no seven year old should ever take a death for anyone, even an entire town.

By the time he reached the edge of the woods, he heard footsteps behind him, running, and he turned to see Mac jogging towards him, holding his shotgun. Logan scowled at him, and snapped, "What are you doing?"

"Coming with you?" He replied, an accent on the final syllable making it a question. "Gordy's getting the rest of the guys together, and you said no one should go alone."

He didn't like it, but he supposed if he went completely alone he'd look like some kind of hypocrite. Besides, if he smelled something, he could make up an excuse to get Mac to return to town, or otherwise separate from him.

Mac was green enough to let him lead the way into the woods, and scared enough to keep his mouth shut. Logan tried to stay upwind of him, as Mac's fear was sour and tainting all other scents.

Why was it familiar? There was something familiar about the scent of the killer, making him think it was indeed a townsperson, someone he had overlooked because he simply couldn't believe they were a killer.

And why had he believed that? Because he honestly thought they were all good people, in spite of their sordid pasts, or because of his own arrogance? Because he was so smart, so worldly and so freakish, no one could fool him, no one could get by him? He was starting to see his own hubris now, written in the blood of others. If Matthew paid for it, he ... well, he didn't know what he would do.

They had gone far into the woods, farther than he thought Matt could have ventured, when the wind shifted direction and he smelled, up ahead, blood. Thick and fetid, new and old.

Not small amounts, not a hint - lots. Not quite Camp Baker level, but close. He didn't know how, unless ... did the loggers continue to work today? Oh god no, oh shit.

He had stopped dead, trying to scan the thick, dark forest, and Mac almost walked into him. He could feel eyes burning into him, watching him, and he knew he was close. "Sheriff?" MacDonald asked, nervously gripping his shotgun tight as his eyes darted furtively around them. Obviously he couldn't smell it - good for him.  
  
"Go back to town, get Doc Withers," he ordered, keeping his voice low.  
  
"What?" Mac asked anxiously. He lowered his weapon, aiming it ahead of them. "Is there something wrong? D'ya think he's -"  
  
"Go," Logan growled, making sure his voice was so hard the boy wouldn't even dare consider disobedience. "Now."  
  
The scrawny young man swallowed so hard Logan could hear his Adam's apple bob, smell his fear. "Y-yes sir," he agreed, quickly heading back down towards town. He tried not to crash through the underbrush, but it was hard for him to avoid doing so, both in his haste and his panic.  
  
This was going to be ugly - very ugly. And he didn't want any witnesses .

As soon as he was sure Mac was out of earshot, Logan said, "I know you're there. You want me? Fine, just give up the boy."

No response, but then again, he didn't really expect one. A little further on, he found an interesting sight - a small clear cut off to the far right, a circle cut out from the trees, and on the farther left was a huge mound of blackberry bushes, obscuring what was probably a bear's lair, a small cave cut into a collection of large boulders.

There hadn't been many loggers out; maybe they were even hikers, people birding or on a nature walk. He didn't see much of them, just blood splashed on the trunk of a jack pine, an arm dangling from a low branch, black, muddy slicks where their blood had spurted out. There were probably only four or five dead, but people had so much blood in them, and if it was all spilled out, it smelled like a slaughterhouse.

But wasn't there something else? The meaty smell of blood almost totally obscured it, but there it was - that undertone, dirty, metallic, with a hint of ... what? He heard low growling, like he had disturbed a bear hiding in the cleave of the rock, but the noise was too human.

And his heart sunk as he finally realized what that elusive scent was. So fragile, so altered in body chemistry, it had been hard to place, but he got it now, and couldn't believe it.

Violets. It was a hint of violets.

Celia emerged from the small cave, blackberry vines tearing at her flesh and her clothes, but heedlessly, as she didn't seem to notice. "No," he said breathlessly, feeling like he had been stabbed in the heart.

But it wasn't quite Celia, was it? Her eyes had changed color, from their usual black to an old sort of gold, and her smell had ... altered. Still Human, but not the same one. "Oh yes," she snarled, and even her voice had changed. It was lower, throatier, still female but more aggressive. "You think I don't know what you were planning to do to her? She can send me away all she likes, but Ceely was always a stupid bitch. She needs me, and she wises up eventually."

"Send you away?" But didn't he know it? It wasn't just the eyes or the voice that had changed, but her scent. People's scents didn't change. Not normally ... "Are you ... are you her sister?"

Celia - the woman who used to be Celia - scoffed derisively, emerging from the thicket. The hem of her plain gray dress was torn and ragged, and now generously spotted with black splotches of blood. Her hands were red up to her wrists, strips of errant flesh dangling from her fingernails. "You men. You're all alike. You use her and throw her away. She'll put up with it, but I won't."

"Where's Matt?" He asked, but he guessed he was in the cave. Christ, oh god, was he still alive? He prayed to a god he had never believed in that Celia's "sister" hadn't killed her son.

Celia's "sister" glared at him with cold eyes, and he was reminded of a mountain lion, or even the bear he initially thought she was - no compassion, but no hate either, just a predator's need for the kill. "You're afraid, aren't you? You just wanted to screw her, didn't you? You didn't think she'd ever be anything but your whore."

He backed up, not completely sure what was going on. Something had happened to her, but he didn't know if he could reach Celia. It reminded him of Harris, a guy in his unit, who was so badly shell shocked and traumatized by the bloody death of his best friend in the trenches that he claimed to be him: he took up all his habits, adopted his flat Newfoundland tone, even insisted on being called Milligan. He was eventually kicked out of the regiment and put in an asylum. But his eyes hadn't changed color, nor had his body language or chemistry. Celia had perfect posture and a gait that could almost be called stiff; everything about her screamed "proper. But now she walked with a loose limbed gait but stiff shoulders, like a boxer making his way to the ring. And that was another thing, wasn't it? The sleeves of her dress had torn away, and he could see a definition to her arms he had never seen before. Muscles, hard, thick, and new, strained beneath taut skin like cables, and what he could see of her calves seemed to have bunched knots of muscles like he'd never seen before. "Wh-what's your name?" He asked, stalling for time.

She tossed back her head and laughed, loose black slicked with blood clinging to the side of her face. "Name? Do I need a name? What does it matter to you? You're all alike."

People just didn't do this. They didn't suddenly have muscles they didn't have before, different eye color - a meek woman didn't become a cold blooded killer overnight. Normal people didn't -

Normal. She wasn't normal. Understanding bloomed, and left a hideous taste in his mouth. "You're not like the others, are you?" He didn't add: '_You're like me.' _But he had wanted to. There were indeed other people just like him, and right under his nose.

But some secrets were far more dangerous than others.

Something glittered in her eyes, nasty and cold. "No, I'm not. I'm special. They tried to beat it out of me. You know what they did at that damned school I was imprisoned in for so many years? They said, when I did these things, I was the devil. Can you believe it? Possessed by the devil. The nerve of them, after all they did to us, to call _me_ the evil one ..."

He had no idea what she was talking about, but he supposed he could guess the gist: someone had done something awful to her. Awful enough to make her like Harris, to make her mimic someone else's personality and believe it as her own? He wouldn't have ever pegged her as insane, but there wasn't another answer, was there? "Celia, I need - "

"Celia isn't here!" She spat. "That stupid little girl, the mousy, respectful, weak one they always wanted. And where did following their rules get her, huh? Hurt, impregnated, abandoned, always at the mercy of some man or another. That'll teach her for pretending I didn't exist. Without me she's nothing."

"You are her - she's you."

That made her upper lip curl back in a sneer. "She is a lie. She never existed; she was what they wanted to see, what she needed to be to get by in your society. But she's never been real. No one that weak could be."

"Celia wasn't weak. Ceely, if you can hear me -"

"Shut up!"

"- Matty is your son, you don't want to hurt him -"

"That brat is not mine!" She roared, and charged him, throwing a meaty punch that he ducked. Her fist slammed into the trunk of the tree behind him - not into it, but through it, sending chips of bark flying anywhere. As stunned as he was by her power - she didn't appear to notice she had nearly punched her way through an entire tree - he gritted his teeth at the idea of hitting a woman (and Celia on top of that), and kicked her in the stomach, not trying to hurt her but shove her away. She did stumble back, but didn't seem hurt, just pissed off.

With an angry grunt, she reached behind her and pulled out a knife she must have had stashed behind her. It looked like one of the lumberjack's utility knives, a big blade with a serrated edge, and rather than stab him with it, she threw it with great force.

It hit him in the chest with the force of a maul, and he fell backwards, hitting the ground hard, the pain of impact so great he hardly even noticed the feeling of penetration, the metal sliding into his skin like it was coming home. An almost electric twinge in his side indicated that he had at least one broken rib.

She was muttering under her breath, something about always cleaning up her messes and teaching them a lesson, and he stared up at the canopy of blue sky between the tops of the trees, the view wavering through the tears in his eyes. They were half angry, and half sad.

Malloy - was he here looking for her? Or was she just an object lesson for him? (_"The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, Mr. Woods. Unusual things - people - seem to be occurring at a rapid rate, and not all of them are as benign as we would hope. We foresee problems, problems that will take special handling ... ") _It couldn't have been a coincidence.

And now that he was laying here in the dirt, waiting for her to finish killing him, he remembered that one of the loggers at Camp Baker, a bearded American lug everyone called Red, in spite of the fact that he was a brunette, had bothered Celia the week before. He got obnoxious and fresh - hardly a new occurrence - and offered her money for a quick fuck by the time he showed up at Gus's to toss him out and warn Red that if he ever acted like that again, he'd break both his arms. Was that the reason? Was Celia so disturbed by Red's behavior that she "invited" her "sister" back to take care of him - take care of them all?

But how could this be anything like him? When his unusual abilities kicked in, such as they were now, heat filling his torso like steam, there were no external changes; no one - thankfully - could see it, unless he was so incautious they could see a wound closing up. Still ... what if it wasn't that way for everybody like him? What if some of them changed? And drastically; it wasn't just the eyes, but the fact that frail Celia looked like she could barely lift a tray full of plates, and yet now she had put a hole through a tree trunk with her fist, and broken at least one of his ribs from the force of the knife embedding itself in his chest.

He actually wanted to see if she could kill him. He didn't want to hurt her, didn't want to face the leering weasel that was Malloy. But as she started walking towards him, hefting a bloody hatchet he had not seen before, he remembered why he was here. It had nothing to do with him. "I can help you," he said softly, trying to swallow back all the emotion. He could not feel, or he couldn't do this. "Put that down, and I know someone who can help you. It doesn't have to be like this." He would make Malloy do it at gunpoint if he had to, but there had to be something they could do to help her.

She hefted the hatchet, and he realized the blood on the blade was fresh. Oh god no. Her face was half in shadow, as hard as granite, yet her eyes seemed aglow with hate. "Just die already, jackass."

And as she brought the hatchet down, he kicked her legs out from under her, sending her sprawling on her back, and he quickly scrambled on top of her, going for the hatchet. But he'd forgotten just how strong she was, as she instantly bucked him off with an angry roar, and jumped on top of him, grabbing the knife still in his chest and twisting it, pressing down harder on the haft. He screamed in pain, angry red and black spots blotting out his vision, and in pure reflex, he punched her.

But it had been so long, he had forgotten. He had forgotten what great pain could make him do, unconsciously, unbidden, and the pain in his chest was so great, like acid spilled in the wound, that he didn't feel the pain in his hands until after it had already happened - thin skin torn, sliced from the inside out by something like bone, but not; something sharper, harder, and deeply unnatural, much like him.

When his vision returned, he saw that his punch, a simple one to the side aimed at her kidneys (painful, but not major), had turned into a stabbing, as the claws in his fist had pierced her side, and her hot, reddish black blood was now spilling down his arm at such a great rate he knew he had punctured the kidneys if not obliterated them. It was a fatal injury, and from the way she just stared at his arm in disbelief, she knew it too.

Oh god, what had he done? What had he done?!


	15. Part 15

Celia - or the thing that was Celia - brought her fist down, and he just twisted his head out of the way before it slammed into the ground beside him, burying itself inches into the dirt. He pulled his claws out of her side, the pain and blood startling her, and kicked her off of him, rolling aside and quickly showing himself up to his feet.

He knew he was already healing around the knife, but he wasn't ready to yank it out of his chest just yet. Not only would it fucking hurt, but it would reopen the wound, and the bleeding, weakness, and dizziness would leave him at a temporary disadvantage. And considering how strong she was, that could be fatal.

She got to her feet, but there was so much blood pouring out of her side the lower part of her dress was quickly turning black, and her left leg was already red with it. She stumbled a bit, but otherwise looked frightfully strong and alert. "You son of a bitch! What the hell kind of freak are you?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly, still horrorstruck at what he'd done, and yet angry at her at the same time. Why couldn't she have told him? Why couldn't she have trusted him enough ...

But had he trusted her? Did he trust anyone enough to reveal his own secret? Maybe the thing that made him most angry was the simple fact that they were, at the end of the day, very much alike. Only he wasn't clinically insane, to the best of his knowledge.

_(Was he sure about that?)_

"I ... put pressure on the wound, I'll go get Doc -"

"Why aren't you dead yet?" She snapped, pissed off, glaring at the knife in his chest.

"I ask myself that all the time." He started to sidle off towards the forest, back towards town, but she moved in the same direction, parallel to him, as if trying to block his passage. "Celia, please -"

"I am not Celia!" She roared, and attempted to charge, but she only took two steps before falling to her knees, slipping in her own blood. "Fucker, stupid fucker, I'll kill you ..." She attempted to stand, but couldn't, and fell back on her haunches.

He approached her slowly, aware that she still wanted to kill him, but the ability was rapidly bleeding out of her. Tears blurred his vision, but he wasn't sure why he was crying, or which one of them he was crying for. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean -"

"Men," she sighed, with weary bitterness. "You're all alike." Her arms were wrapped around her midsection, but she had already lost too much blood, and it didn't do any good. She was fading away, he could see it in her eyes, and he knew even if left for Withers now, there was nothing he could do for her. He had been in war, and he knew that look, that faraway stare, knew that smell. She was dead - it was all over but the final shut down of the nervous system.

On top of that, the color in her eyes started to fade, the darkness slowly surfacing, and he knew Celia was coming back - however that worked. Still, he approached carefully, not sure if it was a trick or not, until she looked up at him with recognition she'd never had before. "Logan," she said, almost questioningly, and collapsed to the ground.

"No." He dropped to his knees beside her, but even as he reached for her, he knew she was dead; he could smell it. "Ceely no, please, not like this. I'm sorry ..." Did you tell a dead woman that you killed that you loved her? Did it matter?

He heard a loud, dramatic gasp from the woods, and looked around sharply. Standing at the very edge was the tall, almost cadaverously gaunt figure of Doc Withers (he lived up to his last name), almost ghost white with shock, his mouth agape in abject horror. Logan thought it was the sight of all the dead and dismembered, all the blood, maybe even Celia herself, but then he noticed his wide, terrified eyes were focused on him.

He still had the knife in his chest, his shirt tacky and red with previously spilled blood, and he hadn't retracted his claws. There they were, ivory blades smeared with blood sticking out of his hand like ... well, like what? Cat claws? Since when did cats have claws this goddamn long? And what Human was related to a goddamn cat?

He met Withers' frightened stare, and it felt like the pit of his stomach had fallen out, leaving him empty inside. It was so cold; he hadn't realized how cold it was, or how lightheaded he was. He retracted his claws inside his hands, and Withers jumped as if he'd fired a gun. "It's not ..." he began, and then realized he didn't know what he wanted to say. He wasn't even sure he remembered how to speak, but he was doing it anyways. "... I don't ... she was ... "

Withers finally found his voice, but remained tense, like he was ready to bolt. "What are you?"

He stared at him, not sure he comprehended the question correctly. "I ... I don't know." The world was slowly tilting on its axis, gravity lightening, and he felt like he was slowly slipping between the cracks.

"Why ... why did you do this?"

"I didn't mean to kill her! It just ... I forgot. Sometimes my control ... things make it happen, I forget ..." He started towards him, hands held out in supplication, and Withers tore back through the woods, running much faster than he thought a middle aged man still suffering from the after-effects of malaria caught way back in his Army days could.

Only then did Logan realize he wasn't talking about Celia, but all of them. He thought he'd killed them all - that's why he left such a sharp stench of fear behind him. He had the briefest impulse to go after him, to explain that it wasn't true, but then he gave up. What, they would believe mousy, fragile Celia was in reality a super strong, insane killing machine? Hadn't Withers just seen weird things coming out of his hands? How did he explain that? Or the fucking knife in his chest?

Galvanized by sudden rage and a sorrow that was overwhelming, he grabbed the handle of the knife and ripped it out. He screamed and dropped to his knees as the pain sliced through him once more, dark motes dancing in front of his eyes and blotting out his vision as he took a moment to heal, the reopened wound sealing shut with an enviable efficiency, new blood making his chest seem warm for a minute. As soon as he could, he forced himself to his feet and stumbled towards the cave. "Matt, can you hear me?" His voice sounded slightly slurred to his ears, but he wasn't fully healed yet, and was staggering slightly, his equilibrium seemingly angry that he was working with a bit less blood than before. "Matty, c'mon, she's ... she's gone. You can come out now."

He was feeling a bit stronger when he reached the tangle of brambles, scrambling over rocks and ignoring the vines tearing at his skin as he neared the opening ...

... and there was that smell again. "No," he moaned, as he slipped down into the opening, and was overwhelmed by the fetid scent of blood and death. He felt liquid squelching under his boots, and even in the dimness of the former lair, he could see a very small body crumpled up against the side of the den.

He made an inarticulate noise in the back of his throat, crouching down to reach Matt, but he put a hand on his chest and felt no movement at all. In fact, the blood on him was cold.

She made him promise to protect him, no matter what. Forget her, and protect him. Did she know? Did she know if her "sister" came back, she'd tried to kill her son?

He'd failed her twice. He hadn't helped her, and he hadn't saved her son. What the hell was he? What good was he?

He scrambled out of the cave, sobbing so violently he thought he might fall apart at any second, and started to stumble through the woods, away from town, away from all of it. He couldn't go back anyways, even if he wanted to, and he didn't.

He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him. He didn't want to live anymore.

* * *

The bastard took so long to return, he wondered if he had left already. Except his scent was so strong and recent, he bet he was still hanging around.

As he thought, Malloy came back. Logan waited until he had shut the door before he moved. He grabbed Malloy and threw him against the wall before he even knew he was in the room, holding him by the throat and pinning him against the wall. He was so startled, his glasses almost fell off. "You," he growled into his face. "You knew about her."

He was squeezing his throat so tightly he couldn't talk. He eased up, and Malloy tried to regain some of his composure. "Mr. Woods. After what happened in Frontier the other day, I thought perhaps you'd disappeared for go -"

"Why didn't you tell me?" He snarled, shaking him like a rag doll.

"I didn't know she was there," he wheezed. "I was looking for a gold eyed woman named Mary Greenhill, who was so insane I didn't think it was possible for her to live among people. I didn't know she could ... alter her appearance."

He wanted him to be lying, he wanted to pop his head like an over inflated air sac ... but he was telling the truth, wasn't he? Honestly, he didn't know. He'd spent all night in the woods, apparently heading down towards Red River without realizing it, feeling completely dead inside. Numb didn't even begin to cover the feeling; he felt like an empty husk, hollowed out, light headed and somnambulistic. He still felt that way, and didn't even realize where he was going until he ended up on the outskirts of town, and knew instinctively he had to find that son of a bitch Malloy. And now that he had ...

He kept smelling her blood, and Matt's blood. It was still on him, dried to a brown crust, and he felt like popping his claws and ripping his own face off, except he was too tired to do so. How had things gone so wrong so fast?

He let Malloy go and collapsed in a chair, so tired and strung out he didn't want to try and sit up. "They think I did it, don't they?"

Malloy straightened his tie and smoothed his hair down before he answered, trying to regain his composure. "Killed Mar - Celia? Yes. They believe you were responsible for the other crimes as well. If it's anything at all, your friend McClendon doesn't believe it."

He shook his head, knowing they would think that, but still unable to believe it. "I never hurt them. I protected them."

"You're a freak." Malloy said it so baldly that it made Logan wince. "I'm sorry, but that's how most people will see you if they know the truth. Although Withers is considered a little unreliable, and possibly hysterical. After all, he said you were moving around easily with a knife in your chest - a knife they coincidentally found. They've been searching for your body, but obviously they've had no luck yet. He also said something about knives coming out of your hands." Malloy looked at him with a new interest, a sinister curiosity sparkling in his eyes. "Do you know what that's about?"

He met his gaze without emotion, unable to raise a single iota of reaction - but that was good, as it would make his lie more convincing. "Trick I learned during the war. I held a knife in palm, blade sticking out from between my fingers. She couldn't wrestle it out of my hand that way, but ..."

"She tried and you stabbed her."

He closed his eyes, trying to will back the few tears he had left. "It was an accident," he muttered, barely able to say it anymore. Maybe it wasn't - did he even know anymore?

"Even if it wasn't, it was self-defense. Mary was a very dangerous woman."

He was so tired he wanted to collapse and never get up again. In fact, that sounded like a dream right now. "What ... why? What happened to her?"

"Ah, the big question. Well, her life, I'm afraid, was a tragedy from the very beginning. It's melodramatic to say that some people are doomed from the start, but she would fit that bill, if anyone did. Being a half-breed is bad enough, but she was abandoned, and ended up in a type of reform school, run by the church to "reform" the natives, teach them of the white man's god, and prepare them for lives as maids and janitors."

Logan groaned, rubbed his eyes. "God, I've heard of those places."

"Yes, well, this one was worse than most. It was run by a somewhat sadistic man called Father White, who it seems had a penchant for young girls -"

"Stop." He didn't need to hear it; he could guess. _("You men are all alike.") _"What about her ... her second personality, or whatever the hell it was. Her insanity? How did that come about?"

Malloy paused to consider his words carefully, and sat down on the edge of his bed, as that was the only seat across from him. "That's unclear. But it is documented that when her eyes changed color and she began to manifest unusual strength, after the onset of puberty, that she was considered demonically possessed, and some ... unfortunate things were done to her. Eventually she seemed to keep her strength in check - or so it was believed - but when she was sixteen ... "

He paused so long that Logan looked at him. "What?"

Muscles in Malloy's jaw tensed, and the enigmatic man looked disturbed for the first time. "She broke out of the school, dramatically. Eighteen people died."

Oh god. Logan closed his eyes once more, and wondered if that was why he felt he loved her. Unconsciously perhaps, he knew they were kindred souls.

"It was clear what the source of her rage was, as not all of Father White was ever recovered, but enough to suggest ... well, her strength wasn't as in check as everyone thought. She was assumed to be extraordinarily dangerous, but so unstable and loathing of humanity that she would never attempt to join it. We assumed she lived in the mountains somewhere - she had good survival skills - but not among people. If that had crossed our minds that that was a possibility ..." He trailed off, figuring the rest to be self-evident, and Logan supposed it was.

"Could you have helped her somehow?"

He sighed heavily. "Honestly, Mr. Woods, I don't see how. She was far too strong to contain - you must know that - and far too damaged to be reasoned with. I'm flabbergasted she had a child, but I'm not surprised she murdered him. I'm surprised she didn't do it sooner."

Logan rubbed his eyes, swallowing back tears. "She said ... she said he wasn't her son. Is that possible?"

"Well ... maybe. I doubt she'd kidnap a child, although as insane as she was, she has to be considered capable of almost anything. Look what she did to that logging camp."

He felt like he was swallowing back bile now. In retrospect, he must have picked up the scent of violets there, he must have ... but he ignored it. Because it didn't make sense, because Celia wouldn't and couldn't so such a thing. Women just weren't that strong ... unless, of course, they were a freak like him. He was so accustomed to thinking himself alone that the possibility of others just didn't occur to him.

"We can make this whole incident disappear," Malloy said quietly. "We can make sure you do not take the blame, and she is never mentioned. This will go down as an animal attack and nothing more. Mary doesn't officially exist. You don't have to either."

Why wasn't the earth swallowing him up yet? Why weren't the skeletal arms of the dead reaching up to pull him down with him? They should; he wanted them to. Quietly, softly, he admitted, "I don't want to exist anymore."

"Done," Malloy agreed briskly. He stood up, and said, "I'll get myself a new room. Why don't you use this one, clean up, get some rest - because frankly Mr. Woods, you look like hell, and don't smell much better. Then tonight, as soon as it's dark, we'll leave for Toronto."

He wasn't sure he wanted any part of what this weaselly little man had to offer - he didn't trust him - but he didn't know what else to do. If he could make him cease to exist, fine, but couldn't they take it all they way? Couldn't they just do it the easy way and kill him? Maybe they would; maybe this was all euphemism. He could hope.

Joining this man, going back to the government, was suicide. He knew that ... and he didn't care anymore. He would accept any form of suicide he could get. "What's in Toronto?"

Malloy smiled at him, but it was cold and tight, his eyes glittering like permafrost in the moonlight. "Your future."

* * *

When he drove up to his home in Laurel Canyon, he noticed the living room light on, and figured Skyla had dropped by for a visit. A good thing too, as he'd had a really long day and could really use a massage. But if she was here, where was her car?

He didn't worry about it as he walked up the path to his front door, loosening his tie and cursing his stupid fucking employers. Something majorly fucked up was going on, some kind of "gang war", and he had been warned to beef up security at his office until he could move, and be wary of Japanese men.

They were insane. He had a successful practice, and he wasn't about to move it. And be wary of Japanese guys? What the fuck? It was L.A. for Christ's sake! Did they know how many Japanese men there were around here? His message service office operator was a Japanese man! Not only was he too old for this stupid fucking shit, but in too high a tax bracket.

"Skyla," he called as he walked in, tossing his infrared "key" on the side table in the entryway. The overhead lights were on in his sunken living room, but she wasn't draped over his brushed suede sofa like he expected. "Cupcake, I'm not in the mood for games."

The kitchen lights were also on, allowing him to see a shadow through the opaque glass bricks that made up the dividing wall. Curious, as he didn't smell anything cooking, but he wasn't perfectly sure she could cook. Maybe she just ordered in.

He ripped off his tie and threw it aside, belatedly realizing that there was something wrong with the way she was walking. Also, the shadow was too big to be her - she was like Lara Flynn Boyle, but with tits.

He felt an anxious twinge in his stomach when a man stepped into the archway, nearly filling it with his bulk. He wasn't fat but broad shouldered - maybe that's what old time writers meant by "barrel chested" - and wearing a tight, cheap olive drab tank top that showed off precisely how hard bodied he was, his arms just thick enough with muscle to be frightening. But hey, at least he wasn't Japanese.

"Skyla had to go," the man said, his voice a low rumble.

He could run, but he had a feeling this gym maniac would catch him pretty fast. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothin'. It seems she got upset when she found out you had a secret boyfriend."

What was that old t.v. show called, Twilight Limits? Something like that? Well, he felt like he had been dropped straight into an episode. "What?"

"You don't call, you don't e-mail," he said mockingly, raising his voice an octave. "I thought we had something special, David. How could you just use me like that, and dump me for some anorexic bleach blonde skank?"

This was un-fucking-believable. "Who the fuck are you?! Get out of my house!"

The guy smirked at his own joke, and raised his hand so he could get a good look at his fist for some reason. He had hazel green eyes that seemed to impale him, filled with a smoldering hate that he wasn't sure he could ever honestly earn. "You're Doctor David LeClare, yes?"

He scoffed. "Well, obviously you know that. Why else are you here?"

"A plastic surgeon who specializes in body modification, and is the personal bitch of the demon mob." Muscles seemed to move abnormally beneath the skin of the man's fist, and three metal spikes shot out from between his knuckles, so suddenly that he jumped. "You have a personal talent in working with metal. You're going to tell me all you know about adamantium, and about people working with adamantium, or I'm going to modify your body with my adamantium. Are we clear?"

David tasted something sour in the back of his mouth and thought about offering him money, but just one look at the embers that were his eyes told him there wasn't enough money in the world to make him go away.

* * *

19

Scott found himself wandering the grounds, but at some point they stopped being known territory and became unknown. Unknown and odd.

A hedge maze popped out of nowhere, topiaries of odd figures dotting its out edges. He thought one looked kind of like a large bird, like a hawk, but it had an unnaturally elongated beak pointing towards the sky, while the forms beyond it started to become more and more grotesque. There was something like a scorpion body with a human head, a human head with long, curving ram's horns, and a dog with a nightmarish head, something triangular, wrong, and indefinable, and all of these things were wrought out of ivy a nauseating shade of greenish-black, like decay. Something dark and shiny was glistening between the leaves, and on closer inspection, they were beetles; big black beetles that clung to every inch of space beneath the greenery. He though he saw antennae move, but otherwise they were so still - waiting? - that he couldn't tell if they were alive or dead, and honestly he didn't want to know.

It was a nightmare garden, something created by someone deeply disturbed, and when Scott turned to go back to the mansion, he found himself inside his room, standing in front of his bathroom sink. The location shift was disorienting, but not nearly as disorienting as what he saw in the mirror.

His eyes.

No visor, no glowing red orbs that would obliterate the mirror and everything behind it until it hit open air. Just plain blue eyes, like the kind he stared at every day before ... well, this; all of this. But his face was not the spotty mess of a gawky teenage boy, but that of an adult. But still, he had no idea he looked like that exactly - when had his cheekbones started standing out? Were his cheeks sinking in? He was so enrapt studying his own face, trying to make sense of what had happened, that he realized he wasn't alone as an afterthought.

In the mirror's reflection, he saw her. Standing in the bathroom doorway was Jean.

"Why didn't you ever ask me to give you your eyes back?" She asked.

Okay, now he knew he was dreaming. Still, he could feel his heart pounding double time in his chest, and he was afraid to look away from the mirror, afraid that if he turned around to see her face on the landscape would shift again, slide away beneath his feet. He gripped the edge of the sink, almost feeling the porcelain, and stammered, "Y-you didn't -"

"- have the power?" She finished for him, a strangely cheerful lilt to her voice. "Oh, but I do now, sweetheart. So why don't you ask?"

"Are you - are you really here?" Why was he asking? This was a dream. He would hear whatever his mind decided he should hear. So why was he so damn excited, and so damn frightened?

She gave him a slightly patronizing half smile, a smile he had seen a couple of times before. It wasn't anything he thought about often, but Jean was not only older than him, but far more experienced in nearly every way that counted. Telepathy be damned, she did her residency in a hospital in the middle of New York City, one that had a history of fights and even gunfire breaking out in the middle of triage. Sometimes she would tell him horror stories about gangbangers who would come by the hospital to settle scores while the victim was still getting the first bullet pulled out of him, junkies with needles in their eyes, nine year old kids wired on crack, but she stopped when she realized how much it horrified him. She knew stuff he would never know, stuff he didn't want to know. "I never really left. You know that now, don't you?"

His mouth was dry, and he didn't know if he could answer her, even if he knew what to say.

Suddenly he knew that something was wrong in the other world, the waking world, and the dream - if it was a dream - shattered.

He woke up tangled in his own blankets, groggy as hell, but vaguely aware that someone had said his name before he woke up. "Jean?" He asked sleepily, reaching up unconsciously to make sure he had his sleep goggles on before he opened his eyes and sat up.

The room was pitch black. It was still night, and all he could see was the glowing numerals of the alarm clock on the nightstand - 4:27 am. His eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and he realized the shape of his armchair was wrong; someone was sitting in it. A lighter flared, almost violent in the gloom, and he could see Logan's face in the reflected glow. "Now I thought you were a mornin' person, Scooter." He flicked the lighter closed, making his face fade away.

He must have heard him say Jean; there's no way, with his bat like hearing, that he couldn't have. But he was clearly choosing to pretend he hadn't, a rare act of kindness on his part. Why? This was something else he decided he didn't want to know, but he refused to be grateful. "What the hell are you doing here, Logan?"

"It's time."

It probably wasn't a continuation of the dream, simply because there was no way he could be this irritated and not be awake. "What? What the hell are you -"

"Mirror Lake," he interrupted, his voice a low, intense whisper.

Now he knew what the hell he was talking about, and his stomach burned with anxiety. "Logan, I'm not sure -"

"If you're going to pussy out, fine. But Saddiq's comin' with me."

"I am not pussying out. I'm still not sure about this."

"They're planning to do this to others, you know" he said, levering himself to his feet. In the early morning twilight, he looked like a rogue, distorted shadow. "The brainwashing, the adamantium injections if they can find someone capable of withstanding it. It's not going to stop, but just maybe we can slow them down, and spare someone else from going through what we went through. Are you in or out?"

He sighed, shaking his head, wondering why his head was pounding and his eyes felt as dry as sand. Logan may have - only may have - had a point, but he just knew this was a horrible idea, no matter how many people he gathered. Hell, Bob could be with them and he still wouldn't feel good about this. But he knew that Saddiq very much wanted a chance to even the score with the Organization, and he was eager to go. Scott knew he'd have to go along, if only to keep an eye on Saddiq - that last thing Logan needed was a protégé. "I'm in. But this sucks."

"Yeah, well, so does life. Get over it." He left his room as silently as a wraith, so quickly that Scott couldn't ask why that statement sounded so strangely bitter, even for Logan (which was saying something).

What was he going to tell the Professor? As he slid to the edge of his bed and slowly got up, he groaned and stretched, hoping that the bad feeling settling like a stone in the pit of his stomach was just a consequence of being in proximity to Logan.

"Jean honey," he muttered under his breath. "If you're listening, consider yourself on stand by. I think we're going to need you."

He wondered if she was really watching them, always there but never quite, and then he wondered why such a comforting thought could scare him so much.

* * *

To Be Continued .... (Of course!) 


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